


Drabbles for Aomine and Kuroko

by andreaphobia



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, Drabble Collection, Ficlet Collection, Halloween, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-22 15:53:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andreaphobia/pseuds/andreaphobia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbles about Aomine and Kuroko being their complicated selves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> An archive of Aomine/Kuroko drabbles originally posted on Tumblr. Edited some since the first time.

**Aomine and Kuroko as superheroes**

“All you do is fight crime,” Kuroko complained one evening, as Aomine was vegetating in front of the television.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is when I can’t see the floor anymore because it’s covered in your dirty laundry.“

“That,” said Aomine, kicking a pile of boxers to one side to expose a shred of stained carpet, “is a horrible falsehood circulated by my detractors, Tetsu. If you can’t see the floor, what are you walking on?”

“I’m not walking. I’m levitating.”

Aomine looked. As it turned out, he was.

“Well, then I don’t see the problem,” he snorted, reaching for the TV remote. Kuroko force-pushed it out of his reach.

“Do. Your. Laundry,” said Kuroko. By the time Aomine snapped out of it, he was already standing, a pile of clothes in his arms.

“Don’t try to imprint instructions on my mind, that’s cheating,” he said, dropping the clothes unceremoniously and reappearing back on the couch.

Kuroko just sulked.

  
  
**Halloween drabble: Kindergarten teacher!Kuroko taking his class trick-or-treating with cop!Aomine**

“I still don’t see why I have to help you take the brats out,” Aomine grumped, fiddling with his uniform cap.

Kuroko, who was carefully herding his adopted brood across the street like a mama duck with her ducklings, only sighed.

“Because their parents asked. And because it makes them feel safe. Don’t you feel safer with Aomine-kun around, Tsuruko-chan?”

“He’s ugly,” little Tsuruko-chan piped up.

Aomine sputtered.

“Ugly? Me, ugly? I’ll have you know, my graduating class voted me ‘Major Heartbreaker’!”

“Yes, yes, Aomine-kun, _so_ handsome,” said Kuroko, in a soothing voice. Aomine shot him a shitty look.

As for the little girl, she just grinned up at them abruptly, all teeth. (Well, all teeth except for the top front two, which were prominently missing.)

“Just kidding!” she trilled, and then skipped off with a flounce of her little-red-riding-hood skirts, basket swinging on her arm, to join her friends.

Aomine gaped after the kid, and then turned to Kuroko.

“What the hell was _that_?”

“ _Language_ ,” said Kuroko, sternly. Then he smiled. “Aomine-kun never has been good with women.”

“Oh, screw you.”

“I’m saving that for later,” said Kuroko, calmly.

At that, Aomine did a double-take, and then walked right into a streetlamp. (Which, okay, hurt like a bitch, but at least afforded the kids some entertainment—even if it was at his expense— and probably taught them some colorful new words, to boot.)

  
  
**Halloween drabble: Aomine is haunted by Kuroko. No, literally, he’s being haunted by Kuroko.**

The fifth time something knocked over the stack of gravure magazines on his nightstand, Daiki had just about had enough of it.

“Getting _real_ tired of your shit, you know,” he snapped, kneeling down once again to pick them up and stack them back together. (He’d just moved into this new place to room with his best friend, and his bookshelf hadn’t arrived yet.)

Curiously, Satsuki poked her head round the door.

“Who are you talking to, Dai-chan?”

“No one,” he said, quickly.

_The manifestation of his insecurities_ , a voice said, inside his head.

“Shut up!”

Satsuki looked shocked for a second, and then frowned.

“ _Jeez_ , Dai-chan, what bit _you_ on the butt today?” she scolded, before whirling away.

Daiki waited until he heard her footsteps disappear down the hallway before rounding on the—well, the _thing_ , whatever it was.

“You _see_? That’s the kind of shit I’m talking about! People are going to think I’m crazy.”

Silence. However, the air seemed to shimmer a little; Daiki got the distinct feeling that something was laughing at him.

“And just so you know,” he added, though he sensed vaguely that he was only digging himself deeper, “they don’t already think that. So guess what? You're an asshole!”

_I believe it takes one to know one_ , the thing replied. In his head. (God, was he losing it? No, that couldn't be it; it was one thing to hear voices in your head, but when the thing attached to the voice could actually physically move things around in your room, that probably meant it was real.)

(Didn’t it?)

“You don’t even have a body, what do _you_ know about assholes?” Daiki retorted. Yeah. That’d show it. Why the hell did he have to give a rat’s ass about what some shitty disembodied voice thought, anyway?

He dropped his stack of magazines back on the nightstand where they belonged, and then turned around. The _thing_ was standing behind him. Daiki—very narrowly—did not scream, but it was close, real close.

It—he?—blinked up at Daiki with cool, ice blue eyes, and a calm, or maybe bored, expression.

_Better?_ it asked. Daiki swallowed.

“Not really,” he said.

The thing only smiled.

 

**a little something about Kuroko and staring at the sun**

When he was six, his mother had warned him about staring into bright lights. Something to do with the pale color of his irises; the net result being permanent damage, disfigurement, et cetera, et cetera. He didn’t not listen to her, but at the same time there was something rather… _intoxicating_ about seeing how far he could push things—about squinting and keeping the sun at the very corner of his eye, 'til halos and starbursts engulfed his vision, clouding everything for hours like a thin layer of gauze had been pulled over the top half of his face.

It was, he realized afterwards, the same thing that he did with Aomine—all the way down to the friction burns on his palms, or that one time he pushed himself so hard during practice with the others that he’d thrown up in the locker room afterwards. Like a boy feeling the sun’s rays kiss his skin for the first time, he would fold his wax wings back and soar; like a sailor hearing the song of the siren, he would steer his ship upon the reef to be dashed to bits. He once watched a moth spiraling into a candle-flame, and thought it a perfect reflection of himself. Every moment of it hurt in some way, but what was life without pain? In the end, it was the truth of what he was, and without light, there could be no shadow—only darkness.

 

**something domestic / something warm and happy**

They moved in together at the beginning of fall, when the leaves were just starting to pile up on the step and every morning was wet with dew that left hoary fingerprints across the window panes. When they had finally wrestled all the boxes and furniture through the front door—a process that involved three stubbed toes, two squished fingers, and one flattened tail belonging to a very huffy Nigou—Aomine plopped down on the recently-placed couch, looked over at Kuroko and said, “Place is too damn _small_.”

“Planning to shoot some hoops inside?” Kuroko had asked, raising an eyebrow.

“And old, too,” Aomine went on. (Kuroko took note of the fact that his answer was not _quite_ a ‘no’.)

Contrary to whatever Aomine might have thought, it wasn’t _terrible_ , though they did have to dodge around each other in the corridors, and stand shoulder to shoulder at the sink in the mornings—him brushing fastidiously, and Aomine paring that morning’s whiskers from his chin as though it was the most tedious chore in the world. Honestly, he _liked_ it; liked the fact that they had to tangle their legs together to sit at the kotatsu and how Aomine was always within earshot if he needed him. He even came to appreciate the way the boiler clanked and banged at night as though someone was trapped inside—or at least, came to appreciate it as part of the charm of the place. It was cozy, and that was all he really needed—a place to share with someone he loved; a place to call home.

 

**a cold grey morning, with snowfall / the first snow of the year**

At eight o’clock he laced up his shoes and went for a jog. The morning was chilly, with just enough of an edge to it that each breath stung a little, as though the mist that had settled over the street was not water, but tiny flecks of glass. Winter was the cruelest season, and that lent itself to harsh training—the sort that ventured past extreme and into the realm of masochistic. He was no longer on a basketball team, and would not be until high school at least; but, he thought to himself, stubbornly, that that was no reason to be giving up any of it.

There was a sleepy-eyed tabby with a bob tail nosing around at the end of the street, so he stopped and knelt to offer it his hand. It gave that a sniff, then turned up its nose and bounded away haughtily. To this, he could only shrug—more for his benefit than anything else, since he was alone on the street—and then continue onwards.

Apart from the odd patch of ice, which he skirted round carefully, the pavement offered little in the way of obstacles, and, with the breeze beating at his back with frigid fists, he felt himself spurred on. His speed had never been the best, but for a good quarter of an hour he kept up a decent pace—at least, decent for someone who no longer had any reason to be training at all. It was no guarantee of anything, besides; perhaps when he turned in his new club application they would tear it up and laugh in his face, or some other thing that only happened in television dramas. But no one could fault him for trying; no one except Aomine, anyway, and wherever he was going was not where Aomine would be.

Sometimes, as one might think of a friend that was once close but had long since drifted away, he wondered what Aomine was getting up to; whether he had been eating well, or going to practice. Whether thoughts of him had ever crossed Aomine’s mind in this way, while he was out jogging, or doing homework, or even just walking down the street minding his own business. But he never pursued those trains of thought long enough to come to a conclusion. He was keenly aware that nothing good could come of letting his thoughts linger on what once was, but, like an ulcer in the mouth that one tongues from time to time, fretful, he could not leave well enough alone.

A while later he passed the outdoor courts, which had been snowed in a week ago. There were footsteps leading back and forth across the snow, laid over everything like a pale blanket, but no sign that anyone had been silly enough to start a game. In their first year they had done just that, when Aomine had forgotten to renew his indoor gym membership and so decided to try to catch pneumonia instead. What he remembered best about that afternoon was how incredibly difficult it was to catch a ball that was slick with ice-slush, and how his fingers had been so cold by the end of it that they’d turned blue. And that he’d had fun—but, back then, that went without saying.

The crosswalk at the end of the street led towards home, but the light was red. He waited, jogged on the spot, and found himself fighting the strangely desperate urge to look back. He was unsuccessful at this, but it didn’t matter. There was no one waiting for him.

 

**a game of truth or dare**

In Kuroko’s opinion, truth or dare was best played with two people, because it guaranteed constant action. None of the long waiting periods you’d get playing with a large group—just question and answer, dare and fulfillment of dare, back and forth all night long.

Would’ve been more fun if he was playing with someone with a sense of propriety, though, he thought, watching as Aomine cheerfully mooned the neighbors out the window, replaced his pants, and then sat back down.

“Okay,” Aomine said to him, picking up his drink again, “truth or dare?”

Kuroko contemplated this. Actually, he didn’t. “Truth.”

Aomine snorted. “You haven’t taken a single dare.”

“You’ve only taken dares.”

They eyed each other. At last Aomine said, “ _Fine_. What’s the dirtiest fantasy you’ve ever had?”

Kuroko contemplated this. Though not for long. “Mud-wrestling with a pig.”

“Be serious. Oh, and make sure you pick one with me in it.”

“Mud-wrestling with a pig named Aomine-kun.”  
“You, my friend,” said Aomine, with a broad sweep of his arm—the one holding his drink, which nearly had him emptying it into Kuroko’s lap—“are a damn dirty cheater. Did you know that?”

Kuroko raised his eyebrows in a look of faux sympathy. (Aomine just flipped him off.) “Truth or dare?”

This answer, too, was immediate. “Dare.”

Kuroko smiled like a cat. “I dare you to take truth instead.”

“You see what I mean?” Aomine snapped.

Kuroko saw very well, but that didn’t stop him from saying, “Are you chickening out?”

Aomine grimaced. “No. But you just wait. I’ll get you back for this.”

Privately, Kuroko doubted that, but it didn’t hurt him to let Aomine think so. He only shrugged, and asked, “What’s the dirtiest fantasy you’ve ever had? With me in it.”

It was odd to see Aomine looking sheepish for once; Kuroko wasn’t sure that he’d ever seen that look on his face before. “… You really want to know?”

“Wouldn’t ask if I didn’t,” said Kuroko, airily.

“It, uh…” Aomine finished his drink, stared at the ceiling for a moment as though seeking divine guidance, then looked back down. “It involves Tetsu. Being, you know…” He waved his hands, expressively. “On top.”

“Go on,” said Kuroko, adopting an expression of earnest curiosity. Aomine flushed.

“That’s it, mostly. Look, you got an answer—isn’t that enough?”

Kuroko had a thing or two to say about the level of detail of that answer, but he kept them to himself. Instead, he shrugged again, and watched as Aomine breathed a visible sigh of relief.

“Okay then,” Aomine said, as he refilled his drink, clearly believing himself to be off the hook. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” said Kuroko, and smiled.

 

**talking without words / very late at night, in the dark**

Kuroko liked training camps, but he hated sleeping at them. Murasakibara had a tendency to throw his arms—his very, very long arms—about in his slumber, as though swatting at imaginary flies. And Kise _snored_. Not the whispery dainty little snore one might expect, judging by his appearance, anyway, but a sound more like a tractor engine.

He poked his head out from under his futon’s coverlet, stared at the ceiling, and then sighed.

“… Aomine-kun?” he murmured, tentatively.

Someone on the other side of the room shifted.

“Yeah.”

“You’re awake.”

“Yeah.”

Silence, for a while. In his head Kuroko heard Aomine mutter, _Hard to sleep with_ this _racket going on_ , to which Kuroko replied, _In the future, I’m sure Kise-kun will make some lucky girl very happy._ (He wasn’t sure if they were actually communicating telepathically or if he was just imagining it, but he’d stopped worrying about that a long time ago.)

He watched a slash of moonlight from the dorm’s open window creep across the ceiling, and breathed in and out, in and out. On the other side of the room, he imagined Aomine doing the same. His heartbeat was loud in his ears; it almost hurt to hear it.

Eventually, Aomine was the one to break the silence. (Well, relative silence.) “You wanna get out of here?” he murmured.

“I do,” said Kuroko, gratefully.

He rose from his bed as quietly as he could. There was a slightly hairy moment when he accidentally stepped on Midorima’s stomach, but Midorima only snorted and rolled over, so he proceeded. It was only a few more steps to the door, which Aomine slid shut behind him, leaving them in the dark corridor.

They could still hear the snores through the door, but at least those were muffled, and the air was cooler as well—or at least, Kuroko felt that he could breathe easier. _What time is it?_ he mouthed at Aomine.

Aomine leaned in, squinting in an attempt to lip-read, and then shrugged. Well, that was helpful. Then again, he supposed neither of them had watches on their person, so it wasn’t fair to complain. He touched Aomine’s elbow, ostensibly so he’d have a point of reference in the darkness, and tiptoed.

_What do you want to do, then?_ he mouthed again.

Aomine appeared to think about this. Then he grinned, a look that said _I’ve just had the most wonderful idea_ , and leaned back in. Belatedly, Kuroko realized he was going for a kiss.

Except he missed, and collided with Kuroko’s cheek-bone instead, clumsily. (There was a hint of stubble on Aomine’s chin, scratchy as he pulled away, and for a moment, Kuroko felt strangely jealous.)

Still, he slid hands up to settle them at the back of Aomine’s neck, and drew him back down. “You have a one-track mind,” he whispered. Aomine chuckled in answer, low and just a little hoarse.

After _that_ , there was no more talking.

  
  
**Aomine is a terrible person / something with Aomine and Kuroko at a library**

“Boooorrring,” Aomine drawled for the millionth time, balancing his pencil on his upper lip and crossing his eyes. Kuroko did not answer this; he merely re-read the same line he had been trying to read for ten minutes, and felt his soul congeal a little with despair.

It had been two hours since they had begun their “study session” in the library, and during this time, Aomine had filled half his notebook with doodles, folded three paper airplanes, and sung the entirety of _Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall_ under his breath. Twice. Kuroko, for his part, had barely made it through chapter one of the textbook, absorbing absolutely nothing.

“Let’s do it in the stacks,” said Aomine, suddenly, the pencil tumbling from his lip. “Up against a shelf. You like books, right? That should turn you on.”

Privately, Kuroko did find that idea ever-so-slightly intriguing, but saying so would have been folly of the highest degree. Instead he said, “I am trying to _read_ ,” in his best talking-to-annoying-little-children voice.

There was a sullen pause. Then Aomine continued, “You know, ‘stacked’ is another word for—”

“—breasts, yes, I know, Aomine-kun,” said Kuroko, pursing his lips.

Aomine grinned, folding his hands behind his head. “How’d you know that? Did you read it in a book somewhere?”

“Just because those are the only kinds of books you read doesn’t mean that all of us have the same plebeian taste in literature.”

“Oh, now you’re busting out the _big_ words!” Aomine crowed, warming to it. “Well, you know what? I know some pretty big words, too. And I know _just_ the kind of talk to get someone like Tetsu hot and bothered.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively. “Don’t worry, baby—I won’t judge you by your cover. I’ll explore your every chapter, good or bad. I’ll stick my bookmark between your pages… slide it all the way in. And then I’ll _read_ you aaall night, ‘till we both pass out.”

Kuroko felt the corners of his mouth inching upwards, and quickly covered his smile with his hand—though not quickly enough.

“I see you find me amusing,” said Aomine, smug and preening a little.

“I most certainly do _not_ ,” Kuroko snapped, though—God help him—he was starting to laugh. At this point a librarian swept through and told them to clear out if they were just going to disturb everyone else, which Kuroko was only too glad to do.

“You are a terrible influence on me,” Kuroko chided, as they made their way to the station. And then, before Aomine could say anything, he added in an undertone—“Let’s desecrate a few classics together tonight, shall we?”

(The next day he found he couldn’t walk without limping, but it was worth it just for the look on Aomine’s face.) 

 

**Detective Aomine and eccentric crime scene investigator Kuroko**

At around eight o’clock Daiki clocked out and made his way down to the forensics lab, where Wagner’s _Ride of the Valkyries_ was playing in the empty hallways again. That meant Tetsu was working late. Tetsu liked working late for two reasons: because he was weird (“eccentric” was the term Satsuki used, but she was just being nice), and because when everyone else had gone home he could turn his classical music up to eleven. Personally, Daiki found it a bit creepy to be strolling down the corridor alone while the horns rose and swelled around him in a breathless chorus, but then again he supposed it lent everything you did an epic feeling—even if you were just squatting over the commode wiping your ass, or staring down a microscope at synthetic fibers trying to figure out their provenance.

The door was open, so he knocked on the doorframe while sticking his head in to look around. Tetsu was seated at one of the work desks, bent low and swabbing the barrel of a gun with great enthusiasm.\

“Hey you,” said Daiki, ambling over. “Long day?”

“Hello, detective,” said Tetsu cheerfully, without looking up. “There’s blood inside this gun.”

Daiki paused.

“Right,” he said, slowly. Well, that had them off to a good start. But, okay, he’d promised Satsuki he’d give it a shot today, if only because she was tired of dealing with him pining over the strangest member of their team. Even though it wasn’t his fault Tetsu was so damn attractive. Perhaps unconventionally so, but still, the day someone pointed out that he was spending more time watching Tetsu potter around the crime scene than actually working was the day he realized that he’d got it for Tetsu, and got it _bad_. By then, it was too late to do anything about it.

“Hey, look… it’s stuffy in here, and you really should get out more,” he said. (He was definitely taking home the gold at the playing it cool Olympics.) “You wanna get some drinks together sometime?

Tetsu didn’t respond at all until he’d finished swabbing the gun and had sealed the Q-tip into a clear baggie to send over to the DNA lab. Then he looked up, gloved hands folded in his lap, and stared at Daiki. He stared so long and hard that Daiki began to fidget, wondering if he had something written on his face. (It so happened that he occasionally drifted off at his desk—hey, the job took a lot out of him!— and Kagami was in possession of a sharpie. And a shitty sense of humor.)

Abruptly, Tetsu smiled.

“You’re very strange,” he said, ignoring the obvious fact that it took one to know one. “If you want to take me out to dinner, you should just ask. I won’t mind.”

Daiki sputtered briefly, then recovered his composure.

“Oh, like _you’ve_ ever dated anyone before,” he grumbled. They all knew that cops didn’t get much time for love. However—

“I have,” said Tetsu, cheerfully flouting all established conventions about their team, and making Daiki choke on his own saliva.

“What? Who? _When?_ ” he demanded, once he had managed to undo nearly swallowing his own tongue.

“Not telling,” Tetsu said, serenely, adding, “And please pick me up tomorrow at seven.”

Daiki immediately forgot all his protests in favor of gaping at Tetsu. A date. They were going on an actual honest-to-goodness _date_. Outside the station. Away from the microscopes and all the stiffs. Although… there was just one thing he had to be sure of—

“Should I pick you up here… or, uh, at the morgue?” he asked, flinching away from that a little. (Because nothing boded better for a night of romance than cabinets full of dead people, right?)

Tetsu’s eyes crinkled at the edges a little as he grinned; Daiki tried not to melt into a tiny puddle of goo.

“Right here,” said Tetsu, and for a moment, it almost sounded as if he was aware of how normal people felt about the morgue. _Almost_. “I hope your car has a stereo,” he added. “On Fridays, I listen to Beethoven.”

“You can listen to whatever you like,” said Daiki giddily. “Seven o’clock it is. Don’t be late, ‘cause I won’t be.”

“I am never late,” Tetsu pointed out, as Daiki let himself out of the lab. All he got was a grin and a cheery little wave before Daiki disappeared back down the corridor, whistling along to the music as he went.


	2. New Year Drabbles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally archived on Tumblr. Edited some since the first time.

**"Imagine your otp putting up christmas lights and competing with the other neighbors, person B getting really pissed off and person A telling them that they’ll just go buy more lights."**

The week before Christmas, Aomine was staring out the window and brooding. He’d seemed upset about something for several days now, so Kuroko—in a rare act of unsolicited kindness—decided to bring him some hot chocolate.

“What’s on your mind, Aomine-kun?” he asked, holding it out.

“Do you see this?” Aomine demanded, accepting the mug at the same time that he jabbed a thumb violently towards the window and nearly spilling the hot chocolate all over himself in the process. “Do you even  _see_  what they’re doing?”

Kuroko looked. The neighbors had put up some Christmas lights, all merrily changing colors. He could also see the vague silhouette of a Christmas tree sitting in their living room, through the window.

“That’s nice,” Kuroko offered, completely unaware of the depth of crazy he was coming up against.

“ _Nice_?” Aomine snapped. “Tetsu, this means  _war_.”

*

An hour later, Aomine returned from the store with a box of Christmas lights. (Kuroko couldn’t help but notice that they were far larger and brighter than the ones their neighbors had used.)

“Help me put these up,” he said to Kuroko, who sighed and allowed himself to be dragged outside in sub-zero temperatures to decorate the house.

Shortly after they’d finished and were standing about in the snow admiring their handiwork, who else should come over but their neighbor himself.

“Nice decorations,” Kagami said, staring up at all the lights, which were significantly more festive than his own.

“Yeah, thanks,” said Aomine, snidely. “No offense, but yours are kinda dim.”

They stared at each other, silent and threatening. (Kuroko, for his part, was beginning to sense that this was no longer something he wanted to be a part of, and retreated into the house, where it was warm.)

He made himself a cup of tea and sat by the window, watching as Kagami drove off in his car, looking annoyed. Five minutes later, Aomine followed.

*

Momoi called him after that.

“Tetsu-kun,” she began, earnestly, “I’m sorry to bother you, but—”

“It’s no trouble at all, Momoi-san,” he reassured her.

“—but could you tell me why my husband is planting gigantic glowing candy canes in the yard?”

“Only if you can tell me why mine is mounting a light-up Santa sled complete with reindeer on the roof.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“Oh,” she said, after a minute, resignedly. “It’s one of  _those_  things, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid it is,” said Kuroko. A moment later, he heard a loud ‘thump’ and someone swearing like a sailor. The roof shook. “I have to go now, Momoi-san,” he said quickly. “I’ll see you later.”

“Probably at the hospital,” Momoi answered, sounding grim. Kuroko wasn’t sure if she was kidding, and he decided not to ask.

*

It turned out that all Aomine had done was drop a reindeer on his foot, so Kuroko went back inside. Just in time for his phone to ring again.

“Kuroko,” Midorima began, without preamble, “would you like to tell me why your house is lit up like the sun?”

“It’s useful,” said Kuroko. “Think of it as a new landmark.”

Midorima snorted. “You can’t possibly be a part of this insanity.”

“No,” Kuroko admitted. “But the tranquilizer gun I ordered from Amazon hasn’t arrived yet, so I can’t stop Aomine-kun. Would you like to help me with that?”

Midorima hung up on him.

*

As it turned out, hooking up electronics in a blizzard was a bad idea—Aomine took out the power in their house by putting up so many lights that he popped the circuit breaker, and Kagami’s roof caught fire. Fortunately, there was one fireman between the four of them, so they eventually got things sorted out. (Also, Kuroko thought of several things to do to keep warm and entertained while the house was cold and dark, which—if nothing else—at least distracted Aomine from any further house-ruining shenanigans.)

 

**Teacher!Kuroko, high school!Aomine**

Kuroko loved history, and teaching, and most of all he loved teaching history—except for the part where he had to deal with trouble students. They came and they went, over the years, but this year in particular there was one that stood out. He wasn’t really a delinquent so much as a… a kid who skipped class a lot. Like, a  _lot_. And hung out on the roof smoking, or, at least, trying to smoke—because while cigarettes tasted like crap, looking cool was apparently more important than the sanctity of one’s air passages.

At the end of another school day with one prominent absentee, Kuroko once again found himself climbing the staircase to the roof. He stood before the door for a few moments, with its prominent  _NO ENTRY_  sign hanging on the back, and took a deep breath. Then he reached for the knob, and turned it..

The door swung open onto the roof, where—as he’d expected—there was someone standing on the far end of the roof, gazing out onto the grounds.

“Guess you found me again, Tetsu,” said the kid, not bothering to glance back. (He did, Kuroko found himself thinking briefly, look kinda cool, standing out there against the darkening sky, with a cigarette burning down between his fingers and drawing a smoke trail into the heavens. Just a  _little_. But it was something that he would never admit, not under pain of death, so it was as good as not thinking it at all.)

Kuroko picked his way gingerly across the dusty roof, eventually coming up beside his errant student with a sigh.

“Please don’t address me by that name,” he said, calmly.

“Why not?” said Aomine, with a grin. “Here.” He held out the pack of cigarettes, tipping it a little to let one poke through. After a moment, Kuroko reached over and pulled it out, but instead of looking for a light, he merely dropped it into his shirt pocket.

Aomine looked at him strangely. “At least smoke it,” he said, putting his own back between his lips. “Else what’d you take it for?”

“One less for  _you_  to smoke,” Kuroko pointed out, reasonably. Aomine laughed, then coughed, then laughed again.

They were quiet for a while, watching the track club running laps around the field in the distance. The smell of nicotine was stifling; Kuroko felt the vague urge to cover his nose and mouth. He thought of the basketball team—of how Aomine had been kicked off of it several months before. Was that about when he’d taken up smoking? Yes, that had to be it. (He wished there was something he could do, but, not being Aomine’s homeroom teacher, his say in the matter was limited, if not entirely non-existent.)

After a minute, Aomine sighed out, slowly, and took another drag.

“You gonna tell me to come to class, sensei?” he said, lazily. (It sounded so sarcastic when Aomine said it; Kuroko could never quite decide which he preferred, that or the inappropriately familiar ‘Tetsu’.)

“If I say it, will you come?”

Aomine considered this for a moment. Then he shrugged.

“Prob’ly not,” he decided.

“You should come to class,” Kuroko told him.

Aomine chuckled.

“You’re weird, Tetsu,” he said, dropping what remained of his cigarette on the ground and stepping on it to put it out.

Kuroko opened his mouth, then shut it again. In the end, it was not a statement he could really disagree with.

*

That night, he smoked the cigarette out on the fire escape, staring listlessly at the apartments across the way. It made him cough, but it also reminded him of Aomine, which was better than nothing. Better than being alone.

Probably no one would have believed it, but he’d been on his high school basketball team, back in the day. It amused him to imagine a world where they could have played together on the same court, somehow. Basketball seemed to be the only thing Aomine was interested in—except now that had been taken away from him, too. 

He smoked, and racked his brain for something he could do; some way to reach a student who had given up on everything. But there was nothing after all.

 

**Aomine brings Kuroko a bouquet (college AU, long-distance relationship)**

Aomine had absolutely no idea what sort of reaction he’d been hoping for by doing this, but when Kuroko took one look at him and started laughing, he decided it definitely wasn’t  _that_.

“Aomine-kun,” Kuroko eventually managed to force out, still cracking up, “what on _earth_ —“

“Shut it,” Aomine snapped, thrusting out the bouquet. “ _Just take them_. Don’t say a god damn word, or I swear, I’ll—“

Given a choice between suffocating in a bouquet of roses and taking them, Kuroko chose life. He took them, and Aomine managed to bristle and look gratified all at once.

“You’ve been reading Kise-kun’s girly magazines, haven’t you?” said Kuroko with a smile, holding them under his nose.

“Have not,” said Aomine, though his eyes were a little shifty. He cleared his throat and began to speechify, “Anyway, I have no fuckin’ idea what I was thinking, so let’s just forget the whole th—“, and only shut up when Kuroko grabbed his chin and tiptoed to kiss him.

(And if Kuroko’s roommate noticed the roses which appeared in a vase on Kuroko’s desk the next day, he never said a word.)

 

**Kuroko dressed up as a girl, meeting Aomine for the first time by chance, and Aomine searching for the Kuroko that he thought was a girl**

According to the announcement that had just filtered over the station’s loudspeakers, Daiki’s train was delayed, and it was for this reason that he was very seriously considering giving up and going home. He hadn’t been all that keen on the team reunion, anyway—he’d only made it this far because Satsuki had held the metaphorical gun to his head and told him to go _or else_ , but now that she wasn’t here his motivation to see it through to the end was flagging. What could be more enjoyable than eating cheap yakiniku while Imayoshi-senpai leered at him over the table? Oh, you know… just about anything he could think of, really. He crossed his arms, leaned back against the bench, and stared across the rails. Maybe people-watching would sustain him until the damn train finally arrived and took the decision out of his hands.

His eyes fell upon a girl seated on a bench on the opposite platform, who was engrossed in a book spread across her lap. The first thing that came to his mind was that she wasn’t his type at all—she seemed flat as a board, at least from this angle; in fact, she had hardly any meat on her frame at all. The waifish look? Is that what they called it? Whatever. Anyway, he liked curvy girls, so given the chance, he’d probably pass on this one.

The girl, oblivious to the attention she was receiving, merely reached up to tuck a few loose strands of hair behind her ear, and then turned the page. Her eyes roamed over the page, and then lit up with silent laughter; a smile curling the corners of her lips up.

Yeah, he thought. Definitely not his type. Nice hair, though. Looked… silky? The kind of hair that made you want to touch it, at least a little. Run your fingers through it or something.

… Yeah, no, not his type. He looked away.

Then looked back again. The girl had on a flimsy sundress, kinda sorta see-through but not really—it was made of a material he couldn’t name, something that you’d think would be transparent, but, unfortunately, was not. One strap of her dress had slipped down her shoulder a little, revealing the pale, perfect point of it, but she hadn’t noticed yet.

Daiki had the vaguest urge to go over there and pull it back up for her—and then remembered how absolutely fucking creepy that would be, and suppressed it with a vengeance.

… She had nice skin, too, come to think of it. Not that he was an expert about that kind of thing, not at all. But a fair, even complexion—you know, easy on the eyes. Not that he was into girls like her, or anything. But she just happened to be there, and his eyes happened to be looking in that direction. No big deal.

Just then, the girl looked up. In the distance, the train on her side of the platform was approaching. She closed her book and slipped it back into her bag, getting ready to leave…

Damn it, he thought. Fuck.  _Fuck_. Well, he could probably make it if he sprinted. What the fuck was the point of all that training otherwise, right? He leapt up and bolted across the platform to the stairs which led below the tracks, dodging past confused salarymen and startled students as he leapt down one stairwell and then climbed back up the other side, taking the steps three at a time.

The train was just pulling up at the platform when he emerged from the staircase; he saw the girl lining up with everyone else to board. He raced towards her, slowing down as he approached because she had just noticed the crazy guy running towards her and looked a bit startled, and—wow. Yeah, she had a really pretty face.  _Beautiful_ eyes. Long fuckin’ eyelashes, the works. It was just that he’d never seen a girl with an Adam’s apple before—?

 _Oh_ , he thought, only belatedly realizing that he’d already taken her—her?—hand.

“If you would please excuse me,” said the girl, looking mildly annoyed and speaking in a voice that, most likely, did  _not_  belong to a girl, “I’d like to get on this train.”

Daiki continued to stare at—well, at  _him_. Around them, people were starting to murmur and point, but all of that passed him by; it was just background noise. The—other boy only looked more aggravated, but even  _that_  was pretty, all pouty lips and slightly-flushed cheeks…

“Have dinner with me,” Daiki blurted out. (Hell, he’d come this far; what did he have to lose?)

The other boy said nothing, though at least his confusion seemed to melt some of his annoyance away.

Behind them, the train pulled out of the platform.

*

_(Aaand for those who want to know how this ended, here is your “epilogue”:)_

*

Daiki never did make it to his team reunion.

 

**Aomine adoring Kuroko - orally**

Daiki’s favorite thing about sucking Tetsu off was probably the sounds he’d make as Daiki was doing it. He was never all that vocal to begin with, but all the little half-moans catching in his throat, the gasps muffled against his fingers and the way that he’d say Daiki’s name when he got  _really_ worked up, not “Aomine-kun” all proper-like but Daiki,  _Daiki_ , soft and filthy and intimate—it was music to his ears.

At the moment he was on his knees, face buried between Tetsu’s thighs and Tetsu’s cock halfway down his throat. Tetsu, for his part, was seated on the edge of Daiki’s bed, fisting the sheets and tossing his head back. He was beautiful like that, naked and there for the taking; his shorts and trousers were bunched up around his ankles, exposing the bite marks Daiki had left on the soft flesh of Tetsu’s inner thighs on his way to his cock. His shirt had been discarded quite some time earlier and was now lost somewhere in Daiki’s house, but that was a good thing; it allowed Daiki to slide his hand up Tetsu’s front, over his flat stomach to his chest, where his fingers found a nipple. He teased a thumbpad over it, enjoying the way it dimpled and hardened beneath his touch, and then pinched it suddenly, making Tetsu jump and hiss.

That, however, was just a distraction; the main event was still waiting for him. He bobbed his head, feeling Tetsu’s cock hit the back of his throat, and hummed lightly, sliding his tongue round the length of it, slow and slick. He could feel Tetsu’s toes curling against the side of one of his hands, braced against the floor to keep himself steady, and knew he was getting to him.

“Dai… ki…“ Tetsu murmured, halfway inaudible between shallow little breaths. The movement of his hips slight and irregular, as though he’d like nothing more than to give in and fuck Daiki’s mouth, but was restraining himself. Then a hand landed lightly on the back of Daiki’s head, fingers slipping through his hair to caress his scalp. It shocked him at first, but he settled into it easily; let Tetsu guide the movement of his mouth, rocking back and forth on his heels a little as he sucked him.

It didn’t take long after that; not with Tetsu’s thrusts growing rougher, bolder, until he really was fucking Daiki’s mouth, sliding his cock past Daiki’s lips, back out until only the tip remained, and then plunging back in. It nearly choked Daiki, but he dealt with it; he kept going and didn’t stop, not even when Tetsu stiffened up and came suddenly, hunching over Daiki’s head with his hands still holding Daiki’s head down and his face scrunched up in ecstasy.

Daiki swallowed every last drop as it slid down his throat, and then pulled back, reaching up to wipe the back of his hand over his mouth and grin a little.

“You liked that?” he asked, hoarsely, knowing full well what the answer would be.

Tetsu could only stare at him, sleepy-eyed and sated, before flopping back across the sheets, holding out his arms to the other. So Daiki followed; he joined Tetsu on the bed, tossing an arm over the other’s stomach and curling into his side. He pressed his nose against Tetsu’s sweat-damp hair, and caught a faint whiff of his shampoo. The intimacy of that little detail made his cock jump a little, pressed up against Tetsu’s thigh—but hell, he could wait a few minutes for Tetsu to catch his breath. They had the whole night ahead of them, after all.

 

**Aomine is a bored salaryman, Kuroko is a yakuza**

At first, Aomine had been—let’s say—a little leery of going on a blind date, but everything was turning out better than expected. He didn’t even really consider himself part of the ‘dating scene’, but he had a nosy friend and also a dead-end job at a shitty company which made him want to kill himself every day, and it was a better way to pass the time than some others he could think of.

“Look, man,” Kagami had said, after Aomine had spent all night bitching about his job and then proceeded to drink himself into a stupor, “I just think you need to get out more.”

“Fuck you,” said Aomine, waving the bartender over for another one.

“No, seriously,” said Kagami, who had spent too many years hanging around Aomine to not be used to random profanity. “I’ll set you up with a guy I know, okay? Just go out with him. Have some fun. Unwind.” He didn’t  _say_   ’get laid’, but his eyes seemed to imply it. Which was great, because while Aomine wasn’t so hot on dates, he was _really_  into fucking.

Even then, the date itself wasn’t so bad. The guy turned out to be a little petite, but surprisingly fit; the handshake he gave Aomine was firm and confident. He came dressed in a well-fitted suit, light grey, with a crisply-knotted light blue tie resting over a dark shirt—the tie very nearly matched the color of his eyes, and the overall effect was almost mesmerizing.

“Kuroko Tetsuya,” said the guy, introducing himself with a slight, coy smile. (Aomine found himself staring, which was a little worrying, but hey, also a good sign.)

They had dinner at a pretty fancy sushi place, outside Aomine’s normal budget—but, well, within an acceptable range for a single night of splurging. His date, as it turned out, was well-spoken and insightful, with a wicked sense of humor, and Aomine was shocked— _shocked_ —to find that he was actually enjoying himself.

Afterwards, they split the bill and exited the restaurant. Just outside the door, as they stood on the sidewalk, Kuroko reached over to touch Aomine’s elbow, catching his attention.

“Would you like to come over for coffee?” he murmured, lightly.

Aomine raised his eyebrows and grinned a little. “Sure,” he said. (‘Coffee’ was one way of putting it; not the usual sort of invitation he got, but it’d do.)

They barely made it through the front door before Aomine was upon him, steering him towards the nearest wall to press him up against it. Kuroko complied, moaning into Aomine’s mouth and arching a bit, and yeah, that was encouraging; he slipped his hands down to cup Kuroko’s behind, and then slid them back up, untucking the other’s shirt to run fingers along his back and—

Then he paused, though Kuroko kept going, riding himself along Aomine’s thigh most distractingly. Was that a gun holstered in the small of Kuroko’s back? It  _was_. He brushed his fingers over cool gun-metal, and then flinched away. Well. What was he supposed to think about  _that_?

“Does it bother you?” said Kuroko quietly, tipping him a small smile. He was in the middle of unbuttoning his shirt; when he pulled it off, it revealed the tattoos decorating his shoulders and biceps, presumably running down his back as well. He also unbuckled the holster at this point, setting it and his gun aside with the casual ease of someone who had spent a lot of time handling deadly weapons, before casually returning himself to Aomine’s arms.

“Uh… no,” Aomine lied. Holy fuck, he was—the guy was yakuza! Or something. So apparently he was going to fuck a yakuza now? The thought disturbed him, but probably not half as much as it should have. Kuroko did look really good with his shirt off, then even better sans trousers… and by the time it occurred to Aomine that what he was doing was probably inadvisable, it was far, far too late.

*

_(And here’s your epilogue:)_

*

“You  _knew_ ,” said Aomine, slamming his drink down in an accusatory manner,

“Suspected,” Kagami amended for him. “But hey. All worked out in the end, didn’t it?”

“I’d say so,” said Kuroko, who was seated between them, raising his glass with a smile.

 

**Aomine and Kuroko celebrating the new year together, with some mishaps along the way**

_Stuck in traffic?_  read his last text from Tetsu, which was perfectly crafted so as to sound like a genuine, polite inquiry while still making Daiki feel like an absolute shitbag. As though this wasn’t the first new year’s since they’d got back together. As though Daiki hadn’t sworn up and down, cross his heart and hope to die, that he’d be back in time for dinner and the countdown.

To be fair, it was Imayoshi-keishi’s fault for making him work late. Daiki had pointed out the dead guy they were supposed to be investigating probably wasn’t going anywhere for the new year, but Imayoshi-keishi had not been impressed.  

“Don’t worry,” Imayoshi-keishi had said, with one of his catlike smiles, “I’m sure Kuroko-kun is a patient man.”

(Daiki had briefly considered asking what that was supposed to mean, and then decided against it.)

 

 _just give me five more minutes_ , he sent back, gnawing at his lower lip.  _i’ll be there in a jiffy._

“Five more minutes” came and went. Daiki drummed his fingers on the seat, rocked about a bit to make it squeak, and then leaned forward to try and catch the cabbie’s attention.

“You wouldn’t happen to know any other routes, would you?” he asked, one arm slung casually over the passenger’s seat. “Like, say… a shortcut?”

Unfortunately, the cabbie just gave him a look that said,  _You think you’re the only one in this city with a girlfriend?_ , which made Daiki deflate and slump back listlessly in his seat. (Not that Tetsu would have appreciated being called Daiki’s ‘girlfriend’, exactly, but… the right term was somewhere in that ballpark.)

After a few more antsy minutes of inching down the street, he texted Kagami.

_i’ll give you a hundred bucks if you let me borrow a firetruck._

_i’m busy,_  came the reply,  _with *actual* work. go away._

_fine. you drive a hard bargain, but i am not a selfish man. two hundred, and i’ll let you use my cruiser to get laid._

No answer. Daiki reflected on the death of brotherhood and fraternity, et cetera, and stared bleakly out the window some more. They really  _were_  five minutes away by this point, he realized—or at least, Tetsu’s place was around the next block. (Give or take a few blocks.)

“Hey, look, I think I’ll walk from here,” he said, after a moment’s thought, digging through his pocket and producing a wad of bills. He held these out to the cabbie, who took them with a silent tip of his hat. “Keep the change, yeah?” 

‘Walk’ had been a bit inaccurate; he damn near broke an ankle sprinting across the park, and even lept like a gazelle over a slow-moving perambulator pushed by a scandalized granny (that cop training could come in handy sometimes). Everyone in the street outside Tetsu’s flat was staring up at one of the big screens on the side of the neighboring building and watching the new year’s eve party being held in the city central. Including Tetsu, as it turned out, because Daiki nearly ran him down while trying to strong-arm his way through the crowd into the apartment’s lobby.

“Aomine-kun,” said Tetsu, clearly startled and catching onto Daiki’s arm to steady himself. “I thought you weren’t going to make it—“

“‘sif I wouldn’t,” Daiki snapped, holding on to him in turn. “I promised, didn’t I?”

“…You did,” Tetsu replied, after a moment, with a slight smile.

Just then, the crowd began to count down in time with the MCs on screen. Tetsu glanced around at them, and then back at Daiki.

“Shall we head upstairs, then?” he asked, with a faintly regretful look that made Daiki feel like someone was reaching into his chest cavity and compressing a fist around his heart.

“… Ah, fuck it,” said Daiki, scooping Tetsu right off his feet (and ignoring his faint squeak of surprise) before kissing him, long and hard, just as the clock ticked over to midnight.

When they broke apart, it took nearly half a minute before either of them could find words. (Daiki didn’t even try, opting instead for gazing goopily into Tetsu’s eyes and smiling as though he’d been concussed.)

“…Such a romantic, Aomine-kun,” said Tetsu, eventually, brushing fingers over Daiki’s cheek with a slightly breathless smile.

“—shut up,” said Daiki, although that snapped him out of his trance long enough for him to set Tetsu back down onto his feet. “Everyone else was doing it, too.”

For a moment, Tetsu looked as though he was going to point out that it didn’t  _look_  like they were; or that, if they had been, they’d long since stopped so that they could stare at the two young men passionately swapping saliva—but instead he put his hand in Daiki’s, and held on tight.

“If you say so,” he told Daiki, with a quiet laugh, and then led him upstairs, where everyone was waiting.

 

**Aomine and Kuroko - from Momoi's point of view**

If the fact that her two best friends were probably head over heels for each other had ever bothered Momoi Satsuki, she rarely showed any signs of it. Sure, there was the time when she had griped for half an hour while helping Aomine pick out a book for Kuroko (“If you like him so much, Dai-chan, why don’t you pay attention to what he says?” “I  _do_  pay attention; I just don’t take notes like  _you_  do!”). Also the time when Kuroko had recruited her into helping  _him_  with a gift that was very obviously for Aomine, no matter how many protests to the contrary he formed—if there was anyone who knew Aomine’s shoe size, after all, wouldn’t it be her?

And  _then_  there was that time when she had walked in on the two of them canoodling in the locker room and been struck by several different competing impulses (“ _No, Tetsu-kun!!!_ ” being the first of these, followed by, “…wow, that’s really kind of hot” and then, swiftly, “EW. He’s like a  _brother_  to you!”). Afterwards, a single snide comment about how certain activities were better suited for locations less public than the locker room had sufficed to shame them into modesty, at least for the remainder of the term.

But apart from that, by and large she kept her feelings on the matter to herself, because she didn’t want the two stupidest people in her life pitying her for something that was entirely out of her control. (And at least she could take pride in the fact that they depended on her somewhat, even if it was only because they were singularly terrible at gift-getting.)

Yes, it could get lonely sometimes—not to mention annoying as all hell—to think that the two of them fawning over each other. That was the problem with knowing them too well, and also being a girl genius; she didn’t have to witness any of it happening to know that it was. For example, Aomine would be utterly blatant about it while imagining himself subtle (but Kuroko would find this endearing instead of offensive, because, well, there was something wrong with him). And Kuroko, for his part, would be just as obvious about it, though in a different way—he’d go squishy and useless every time Aomine entered the room, and vague and piney whenever he left. She noted all of these things, but because they were her friends she tried desperately not to think of them in terms of numbers or behavioral triggers. It just so happened that her two favorite people were absolutely  _stupid_  for each other—but if  _they_  couldn’t do anything about it, then what was  _she_  supposed to?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr. Edited some since the first time.

**an onsen trip**

Tetsuya came to suddenly, only to find himself horizontal, laid out on a bench with his head pillowed on something solid but warm. Also, Aomine appeared to be looking down at him with mild interest. How quaint, he thought.

“…How long was I out?” he croaked.

Aomine lifted one shoulder in a half-assed shrug. “About ten minutes or so.” He slipped his hand under Tetsuya’s head, lifted it from where it rested against his thigh, then set it back upon the bench so he could stand. “You want somethin’ to drink?”

Tetsuya cleared his throat until it felt less like raw meat. “A Pocari, please.”

Aomine laughed, digging around in his pockets for change. “You always want the same thing. Don’t you get bored of it?”

Tetsuya chuckled hoarsely.

“It’s just a preference. Like how Aomine-kun can’t get it up unless the girl he’s with has a big chest.”

“I’ll never understand how you say shit like that with a straight face,” Aomine told him. He ducked to collect the can from the dispenser, and then strolled back, plopping down next to Tetsuya and holding it out. “Here you go.”

Tetsuya took the can, then sat up, albeit with some difficulty. (After a moment or two he slumped sideways against Aomine’s shoulder, nuzzling against him; Aomine glanced at him, and might have smiled just a tiny bit.)

“You’re not denying it, though,” Tetsuya noted, popping the can open. Aomine coughed.

“Yeah, well. I get it up with Tetsu, don’t I?” Then he laughed. “And you’re flat as a board.”

Tetsuya raised an eyebrow. “Thank you.”

“Any time.”

Tetsuya couldn’t help but smile as he sipped at his Pocari. Yes, he found himself thinking. It’d be good if things never changed.

 

**summer vacation and sunburn**

Kuroko couldn’t figure out why Aomine had insisted they take their next vacation at the beach until he showed up and found Aomine standing there with sunglasses, a pair of tacky boardshorts, and a surfboard.

“Who did you have to kill for that?” he inquired, as they made their way down to the shore.

“No one,” said Aomine, though his eyes were shifty. Then he laughed. “Seriously, though, I’m getting good at this. You’re gonna be so impressed you’ll beg me to ravage you all night.”

“I believe you mean ‘ravish’. And I’m sure I will,” said Kuroko, without a trace of irony.

Aomine squinted. “No, I’m pretty sure I meant the other one. Anyway, smell you later, Tetsu!”

Kuroko wrinkled his nose at Aomine’s pathetic attempt at surfer-speak, opening up their beach umbrella. Then he sat down under it and watched as Aomine wiped out a couple dozen times. It was highly amusing, but laughing out loud would have been folly and probably put Aomine in a snit, so instead he took a book out of his bag and stuck his nose in it.

In the end, it was all Kagami’s fault, he thought, reflecting on the nature of their friendship and rivalry. Number one, Kagami was good at surfing. Number two, surfing was a thing that they could compete at. Number three—well, it went without saying. But judging by the way that Aomine was busy drowning himself at that moment, he probably had a long way to go before he’d even mention to Kagami that he’d been trying it out.

He read a few pages of his book, and then wandered off to buy a drink. By the time he came back with an iced tea in hand, Aomine was already sitting near their umbrella with a towel around his neck, baking in the sun. Kuroko paused for a while to admire the sight of him at a distance before approaching—yep, there was something to be said about glistening wet muscles and a healthy tan.

Aomine looked up as he sat down. “Hungry,” he grunted.

“Congratulations,” Kuroko told him. Aomine made a face.

“Don’t want congratulations. Want a burger.”

Kuroko bit back a smile and a comment about how all that wiping out must have made Aomine-kun  _ever_ so tired. Instead he said, “Let’s go together,” and they did.

*

That night, in their hotel room, he saw himself in the mirror and realized he was pink.

Aomine noticed, too, and gave a low whistle. “That is not a good look for you, Tetsu.”

“Very funny,” said Kuroko, irritably. Well, at least that explained why his shirt was chafing like crazy. He peeled it off and tossed it aside, then went to rummage in his bag. “Please help me apply some lotion, Aomine-kun.”

“Oh, gladly,” said Aomine, grinning. “You better get those pants off, too.”

“You think you are so terribly amusing,” Kuroko said, as Aomine pushed him down onto the bed. Then he yelped, making Aomine draw back in alarm. (He was embarrassed to discovers that his eyes were watering.) “That… stings a little, Aomine-kun. Please be careful.”

“Shit. Sorry,” Aomine mumbled, and went to squeeze some lotion into his palm. Kuroko sat up to let him slather it over his back and shoulders in silence, flinching every now and then at the touch of Aomine’s fingers, gentle though they were, over his sore skin.

When Aomine had finished, he wiped his hands off on his pajama pants. Kuroko looked at him consideringly for a moment, then reached over and shoved him firmly onto his back, knocking the wind out of him.

“Tetsu, what—“

“You can’t have me on my back for tonight,” said Kuroko, throwing a leg over to straddle him.

“Well, yeah, I already know that—”

“So that means,” Kuroko interrupted, peeling off his boxers, which were incidentally the last item of clothing he wore, and tossing them away, “that  _I_  have to be on top.”

Aomine blinked up at him, his eyes doing a quick scan of Kuroko—from groin to stomach to chest to his face—and then swallowed.

“… Okay, then,” he said, hoarsely, and grinned. “No objections here.”

 

**THEY'RE YAKUZA NOW**

Their room might have been a real piece of shit, more fit to be burned to the ground than inhabited, but there was one good thing about the motels in this area: the receptionist didn’t call the cops when they stumbled in at three in the morning, bloodied and beat half to a pulp. Well, it was mostly Daiki who was like that, leaning on Tetsuya’s shoulder and limping along. He gave as good as he got, sure, but it wasn’t like he was made out of Kevlar, and Tetsuya was going to make damn sure he paid for the suit he was currently bleeding all over.

Tetsuya, on the other hand, was packing, and there weren’t too many street punks willing to argue with him while staring down the barrel of a gun, so he got off all right. However, as the remaining able-bodied member of their pair, that put him on first aid duty, and he wasn’t too happy about that.

He fumbled with their keys to get the door unlocked and then elbowed his way through it, depositing Daiki unceremoniously upon the floor beside the bed.

“You need to be more careful,” he snapped, washing his hands and then going to pull the first aid kit out of his suitcase.

“There you go again, Tetsu,” Daiki drawled, “using those big words I don’t understand.” He studied the dried blood webbing the back of his hand and the truncated stub of his ring finger, laughed morosely, and then slumped back against the side of the bed.

Tetsuya turned the flickering bedside lamp towards them, then dropped to his knees beside Daiki.

“Shirt. Off,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Daiki muttered, reaching across himself to drag the tattered thing up and over his head, revealing a couple of dark bruises across his chest and stomach, and also a gash in his side, long but shallow. He barely flinched as Tetsuya swabbed it out with peroxide, ruthlessly, though he did hiss quietly when Tetsuya picked up needle and thread and began to weave it through his flesh to stitch it back together.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you get off on this,” Tetsuya told him, glaring down at the wound, which shone wet with blood.

Bright-eyed, Daiki bared his teeth; his grin was feral, half-wild. “Don’t you?”

(That, Tetsuya did not answer.)

The whole process took little more than fifteen minutes, which was either a testament to his skill, or the fact that they’d gone through this several dozen times before. Afterwards he dug out a roll of gauze bandages and wound them tight round Daiki’s midsection, while Daiki, having rescued a pack of cigarettes from his discarded shirt pocket, simply sat there and lit up, puffing. 

To finish, he pinned the bandage in place, and then tucked in the loose end of it. Daiki gave it a light pat, then smirked up at Tetsuya.

 “Good work,” he said. “Have a smoke to celebrate.”

He leaned forward and shoved his cigarette between Tetsuya’s lips; his fingers, crusted with dried blood, were warm against Tetsuya’s cheek.

Tetsuya, for his part, scowled, but then gave in almost immediately, taking a deep drag. He blew out smoke, which wreathed his face and hung stale in the air, and relaxed a little. Nothing quite like a nicotine high to take the edge off of things.

“You know I’m trying to quit,” he said, after a moment, but Daiki only laughed.

“You’re a fucking liar,” Daiki told him, and seized his free hand. Before Tetsuya could yank it back, he flipped it over and leaned down, kissing the palm of it noisily. The white scar tissue there from when they’d become blood brothers still pinched from time to time, and it itched a little whenever Daiki did this.

Briefly, Tetsuya tolerated this, but by now his patience had been worn thin.

“… Are you quite done?” he said, coldly.

“Nah.” Daiki grinned against his knuckles, and then began sliding his mouth up to Tetsuya’s wristbone, peeking out beneath his sleeve, where one could catch a glimpse of the ink designs which wound around his arm and bicep all the way up to his shoulder. “You should really get out of that suit before I tear it off you.”

Tetsuya took another pensive drag. “You’ve already ruined it, so it doesn’t matter either way,” he quipped, before going to stub the cigarette out in the ashtray beside the bed.

As Daiki looked on greedily, he reached up to undo his tie—but he took his time about it, slipping one finger through the knot and wiggling it to loosen it a little before pulling it free, though it still hung loose around his collar. He figured Daiki wasn’t going anywhere for a while, not with that kind of wound, so they had all night to discuss just how he was going to provide recompense for Tetsuya’s suit.

 

**A Valentine's day call**

When his phone rang the night of Valentine’s day, he really should have seen it coming. He plopped down in bed, already in his pajamas, and answered.

"Kuroko speaking."

"Hey Tetsu. Make me some chocolates."

Tetsuya once again felt his brow creasing up in consternation, as it often did when he was engaged in conversation with Aomine-kun. “Why me?” 

"Because you’re the girl."

"I could make  _you_  the girl,” Tetsuya told him. “Easily.”

A pause; then, slowly, “…Would it hurt?”

“No. It’d feel really good.”

“Hmmmm,” said Aomine, sounding thoughtful. “…Wait. Don’t change the subject, Tetsu. Chocolates.”

“If you want them,  _you_  make them.”

“But you’re the—“

“Neither of us is ‘the girl’. Or  _a_  girl, for that matter,” Tetsuya reminded him pointedly.

Aomine made an impatient noise, as though Tetsuya was hung up on unimportant details. “Fine, fine. But I still want chocolates.”

“Didn’t you get plenty already?” Tetsuya asked, with a sigh. “Just eat those.”

“But wasn’t today supposed to be special? That’s why I’m asking Tetsu, you know.” Aomine even had the gall to make his tone exasperated, like he wasn’t himself exasperating on a regular basis. “You have no romance in your soul.”

“I don’t want to hear that from  _you_ ,” Tetsuya told him, idly fingering a hole in his coverlet. Then he sighed once more. “We can get you chocolate at the convenience store after school tomorrow, okay?”

“Promise?” Aomine demanded, sounding unusually intent—which struck Tetsuya as strange, but he decided not to ask.

“I promise,” he answered. “Apollo chocolate, even.” Because those were delicious.

“Okay. Great. See ya!” said Aomine, and immediately hung up.

As a proxy for Aomine, Tetsuya gave his phone a dirty look, then put it away and went to bed. (A late Valentine’s day was still better than none at all, he figured, and in the end, it was being with Aomine-kun that was most important.)

 

**Never change**

Tetsu plopped down beside him on the side of the court, drenched in sweat and breathing hard.

"One more," he said, and held up the ball with a smile.

"One more?" Daiki asked incredulously, though he was grinning too. "You can barely stand."

"A minor quibble," said Tetsu, with a shrug. "I’ll just have to beat you sitting down."

Reaching up to slick damp hair back out of his eyes, Daiki said, “I think making you play again might be considered cruelty to children.”

Tetsu fixed him with a look that would have made a greater man quail. “Don’t,” he said, in a cool voice, “ever call me a child.”

"Uh," said Daiki, and then, "sorry."

Tetsu blinked slowly, owl-like. “I was joking.” 

"Oh!" said Daiki, immediately relieved.

"But don’t do it anyway." He studied the ball in his hands for a moment, thoughtful, and then passed it over to Daiki. "So," he went on, "are you scared?"

"Scared?" Daiki echoed, taking the ball and then levering himself lazily to his feet. "Me?" He contemplated this. "Maybe scared that you’ll run out of juice entirely and I’ll have to carry your limp body home, I guess."

"That’s very considerate of you, Aomine-kun," said Tetsu. He paused. "How unusual."

"You’re really asking for it," said Daiki with a laugh, leaning over to start dribbling the ball back and forth easily, between his legs. "Yeah, okay. One more, then. But if you can’t walk afterwards, don’t come crying to me."

Tetsu got up, too—albeit with some effort. “I won’t,” he said, completely serious. “So give me your best shot.”

“ _You_  give me  _yours_ ,” Daiki told him, tossing the ball over. With a smile, Tetsu caught it.

"I shall."

 

**Fight Club word vomit**

Sometimes they kiss, all bloody and bruised, and it tastes like copper and it hurts to cling so close but the rush is the same as it is in the middle of a fight, like when Tetsu’s fists pound his ribcage, when Tetsu socks him a good one across the jaw and makes his head spin and lights go off before his eyes (later at work he’ll tongue the side of his mouth and feel a tooth wiggle but it won’t matter, nothing matters the night after a fight with Tetsu—)

Tetsu is smaller than the other guys, dwarfed in the crowd, but his blows are quick and viciously aimed at tender spots and his kisses are all teeth and Daiki thinks he’s a little bit in love. It tastes like the pint of blood he swallows and throws up later over the drain in the corner, like the cup of rusty water Tetsu holds out to him that goes down sweet and clear after the tang of metal and bile.

"Wash it down, champ," Tetsu tells him, scrubbing a warm, blood-slick hand through Daiki’s hair. His hands shake; water spills over the edge of the cup, splatters on the floor by his feet, and he laughs even though it hurts, even though the sucker punch that got him in the stomach just now stings like a bitch.

"Yeah, okay," he says. Hands the cup back to Tetsu; watches him take a mouthful, and then grabs him by the front of his shirt, by the front of that tattered wife-beater he wears to smash their mouths together. (Everything goes down better when it’s from Tetsu, anyway.)

Their teeth click together; Daiki’s lip finishes splitting open and he tastes blood anew. Tetsu makes a low sound in his throat and fists a hand in the short hair just above Daiki’s nape to crush their mouths together more urgently, heedless of his (both of their) still-fresh bruises.

 

**Boy scouts getting lost**

Two hours later, when Kuroko points out that this is the third time they’ve passed that particular cypress tree, and would Aomine-kun  _please_  slow down because walking in circles is so  _terribly_  tiring, Aomine might… lose his temper. Just a little bit.

“Fine!” he snaps, digging the crumpled map out of his pocket and thrusting it at him. “ _You’re_  the navigator now!  _You_  get us back to the rest of the troop!”

Kuroko takes it and unfolds it with delicate fingers, while Aomine glares at him, swipes sweat out of his eyes and then glares some more. He leads them past the cypress tree one more time, over a peaceful little babbling brook, past a lovely meadow filled with flowers and then there they are, the rest of the troop, gathered around a small campfire.

Murasakibara is roasting marshmallows happily and doesn’t bother looking up as they approach; Kise, on the other hand, bounds to his feet.

“Kurokocchiiii!” Kise cries, dashing over. “We thought you were dead!”

Kuroko sidesteps him neatly, while also ignoring the half-amused, half-irritated look Aomine is favoring him with.

“Could you not be unexpectedly good at things?” he complains. “Also, you could have put me out of my misery earlier.”

Kuroko just shrugs carelessly. “I found myself thinking…” he says, slowly, “that it’d be nice to walk with Aomine-kun for a little longer.”

Aomine does a double-take at that, but Kuroko’s already settling into place at the campfire. So he just snorts to himself and then heads over to join them with a grin, resolving to pester Tetsu about it later.

 

**Stuck in an elevator together**

“Boooored,” Aomine whines, leaning back against the wall and then sliding down until he fwumps onto the floor in a heap. “Wanna leaaaaaaave. Wanna plaaaay.”

_Day one of being trapped in an elevator with Aomine-kun, Kuroko thinks, studying the floor. Tried to strangle myself with my own tie. Experienced limited success._

“Hey, Tetsu,” Aomine drawls, head lolling on his shoulders, “you ever fart and belch at the same time?” He pauses. “Feels great.”

_Might have better success with shoelaces. Or holding breath until I fall unconscious._

“Tetsu, you listenin’ to me?”

“Yes,” Kuroko says, in an absent tone of voice. Aomine frowns at him.

“You’re not,” he grumbles, and reaches over to smack his shoulder. Kuroko fends his hand off; it turns into an arm-wrestling match and then finally Aomine’s got him in a headlock (a gentle one—more or less) and is scrubbing his hair and chuckling affectionately.

“I give, Aomine-kun,” Kuroko wheezes, patting at his arm. “Please let me go.”

Aomine does, and then flops back down in the center of the floor. Overhead, the lights flicker with a soft electrical buzz, and then stabilize.

“…Say, Tetsu,” Aomine says, slowly, after a while. Kuroko, recognizing that tone of voice, side-eyes him.

“What is it, Aomine-kun?”

Aomine grins at him, sharp enough to send a little frisson of shock down his spine. “I thought of a way for us to pass the time.”

“Don’t—” Kuroko starts to say, except it’s hard to talk when there’s someone’s tongue halfway down your throat and their hands all the way down your pants.

Of course, like a law of nature—the law of cockblocking, anyway— _that’s_  when the elevator starts to move. (If only it’d occurred to Kuroko sooner, they would’ve been on their way ages ago.)

*

“You boys all right?” the maintenance guy says, once the doors have opened and revealed two extremely disheveled high school boys. He cocks his head to one side, and grins, genially. “…Did you two get into a fight or somethin’?”

“Something like that,” Aomine mutters, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Kuroko just coughs lightly, and goes to gather up their things.

 

**Something weird and melodramatic about regret**

It’s not like you  _want_  to remember—god only knows it’d be easier if you could forget. If memories were just paper that you could set alight and burn to ashes, that you could shred to bits and scatter in the wind. If it were something that you could just leave on the roadside and walk away from it, and maybe someone else would take it in and take care of it and make it theirs, but you wouldn’t care as long as it wasn’t your responsibility anymore.

If you could shut your eyes and fall asleep without ever hearing his voice again; if your head was full of silence, full of light, not a shadow to be seen.

The basketball court in the park across from your house stays empty most of the winter—you can see it from your window as you’re doing your homework, doing anything that keeps you from having to think. Once, some kids start playing  _darumasan ga koronda_  on it, but then it starts to rain, so they scatter and go home. 

You shut the window as rain splashes against the pane, the dreary sound of it buzzing in your ears like static from an old radio. A little bit of water never stopped the two of you from playing, you think to yourself—but then again, when you were with him, you were invincible. Alone, you’re just a kid who knows how to pass, with no one to pass to. A pointless existence; a weak person who couldn’t do the slightest thing for someone important to him. A boy with a handful of memories and a hole in his heart… a shadow, a sound heard at the end of the hall, only to be forgot.

*

Some things that you find in your room, afterwards:

a sheet of lined paper, complete with stick-men diagrams, from the time he tried to explain zone defense to you. (In retrospect maybe Momoi might’ve been a better choice, but it wasn’t really an  _explanation_  you wanted. Not really.)

a dusty jewel case for Street Fighter Alpha 3, next to your old Playstation. He’d mentioned wanting to play it again, and you scoured the used games section at half a dozen shops before finding it. You never did end up playing it, though; it sat next to your TV for months until eventually you put it away.

The spare futon, on the other hand, stays in your closet, rolled up and out of sight. You won’t be needing it now; you’ve half a mind to toss it out.

The last time you had it out was months ago, and it was awful. He was sullen and withdrawn, too caught up in his bitterness to enjoy himself. You lay in bed for a while, staring at the ceiling, then crawled down to join him upon it. His back was to you, solid, a wall between you. You pressed your forehead it, between his shoulders, willing him to understand, praying for some trace of your feelings to reach him. If this was a story with a happy ending maybe he would have heard you, turned around and laughed and become his old self again, but it’s not. You fell asleep like that, pressed up against him, and when you awoke, he had already left.

*

There were other things he left behind, too—the muscle memory that carries you past the convenience store on your way home, or through the magazine aisle in the bookstore when you’re only there to find a light novel. The feel of the ridges of his knuckles against yours; not bony, just a little damp with perspiration. (His skin was always warm; it was the sort of heat generated by a body constantly in motion.) The sound of his laughter, the weight of it a burden when it disappeared from your life with him. A sick feeling in your gut, like waking up from a nightmare only to find yourself in another one, or like swallowing too much water, but still drinking more. You wonder if this will end or if the agony of it will just stretch on forever, winding you tighter and tighter until you snap.

Walking home from the last day of school, you turn your face up to the sky to count the stars, but the clouds block them out. There isn’t a single light to be seen.

 

**Literally an angel**

“Say, Tetsu,” Daiki says to him one night, curled around him in bed on top of the covers. His arm’s a warm, solid weight over Tetsuya’s side, holding him in place, holding him close. “…What’s it like? Bein’ an angel and everythin’, I mean.”

Tetsuya ponders this for a little while in silence, and then shrugs—a uniquely human gesture that he picked up sometime around the early 1800’s, when he swung by France to check out the aftermath of that little revolution.

“What would you like to know?”

Daiki hums—his breath tickles Tetsuya’s ear, makes him chuckle. (Tetsuya folds fingers over Daiki’s hand where it rests on his hip, keeping it there.)

“Dunno. Just—you don’t have to breathe, right? Or sleep, or…” he falters, and settles for a vague, “any of that stuff.”

“I suppose,” Tetsuya responds, quietly.

“You s’pose? You don’t think much of it?”

In answer, Tetsuya slides his head down a few notches to nuzzle the center of Daiki’s chest (Daiki might hold his breath a little).

“I like that I can hear your heartbeat,” he murmurs, and glances up at Daiki from under his lashes, coy.

Daiki swallows, hard, and flips his hand around under Tetsuya’s palm to weave their fingers together, giving it a squeeze. (He thinks of the first time they met, when he saw Tetsu’s wings fully extended; remembers the sensation of combing his fingers through the downy feathers, and the way Tetsu’s breathing would hitch as he did it, even though it didn’t have to. He thinks that, every day, Tetsu’s a little more human. He thinks that maybe he doesn’t mind that so much.)

He thinks… of a lot of things.

“…yeah,” he says, hoarsely, because he can’t come up with anything besides that. “Yeah.”

 

**Fluff, including Nigou**

Aomine has no idea how much god damn work taking care of a dog is until he moves in with Kuroko. It’s not just feeding and watering; you have to walk the damn thing every day—twice, if possible—and get up and open the door when he wants to go, and get up and open the door again when he wants to come back in… and it’s just the most monumental pain in the ass, like he could never imagine in his most horrible nightmares.

“That ‘damn thing’ is your son now,” Kuroko informs him calmly, clipping the leash to Nigou’s collar and then putting the other end in Aomine’s hand.

“Doesn’t look anything like me,” Aomine says. “You been cheatin’ on me, Tetsu?”

Kuroko smacks him on the arm, and shoos them both out the door.

Okay, so maybe it’s not that bad once they get going. Good weather, and he was kinda getting restless lying around the house all day. They stop every once in a while so Nigou can do his doggy-thing, sniffing at… whatever, and peeing on… whatever, and maybe Kuroko tells him about what this little monster in his kindergarten class did and makes him laugh. Whatever, right? It’s still more trouble than it’s worth.

They pass by the convenience store and Kuroko gets the idea that they should buy popsicles like the old days, so they tie Nigou up outside to wait and maybe when they come back out he starts losing his shit, jumping around and barking and wagging up a storm and that puts a smile on Aomine’s face for a minute before he remembers he’s being grumpy about having to do a chore.

Kuroko glances at him, and then neatly inserts his elbow into Aomine’s side. Once Aomine’s gotten over his choking fit, he rounds irritably on Kuroko.

“The hell was  _that_  for?”

“Give it up,” Kuroko tells him, prim and also smug. “I saw that smile. Aomine-kun is enjoying this.”

“I am  _not_!” Aomine says, half-indignant and half-horrified.

As they resume their walk, Kuroko shakes his head thoughtfully. Nigou, meanwhile, bounds ahead, alternately straining at the leash and then padding along obediently at their sides.

“I don’t understand why Aomine-kun is so resistant to this,” he muses. “It’s not so bad, is it?”

“It’s ‘cause if I’m not, Tetsu’ll make me do this every day,” mutters Aomine, not quite under his breath.

Kuroko thinks about that one for a moment, and bursts out laughing. (Since he’s Kuroko, his laughing fit is more like someone else’s chuckle, but… it’s close enough.)

“…Fair point,” he says, reaching over to take Aomine’s hand and hold the leash with him.

 

**Carry me to bed**

If there was a god, he probably got a real kick out of fucking with Daiki, because there was no way, no way in  _hell_  that it was fair for him to come home after a long day at work and find Tetsu asleep on the couch, wearing one of Daiki’s shirts—and not much else. Not even  _remotely_  fair, and standing there with his bag in one hand and his keys in the other, he could already feel all the blood draining out of his head into the more pertinent bits of his body.

Tetsu gave a soft snort, stirring; the book in his hands slipped from his limp fingers to land with a ‘thump’ on the floor, and the shirt rode just a little bit further up his thighs. His  _bare_  thighs, Daiki noted, with a sort of professional interest, already loosening his tie. 

He knelt down by the side of the couch, leaning down to ghost his lips over Kuroko’s forehead, the bridge of his nose, his mouth, his chin. Tetsu shivered in his sleep, and Daiki smirked a little, reaching up to fold fingers around his wrist—

…shit. His skin was cold. Not quite cold as ice, no, that’d be terrifying, but he probably wasn’t comfortable. That deflated Daiki’s libido a bit, and he sat back on his haunches to think, and maybe also curse his luck, and the deity that might or might not exist who so delighted in his misery.

He settled for bundling Tetsu up to bed and tucking him in, and setting the alarm for a good early hour, because the best way to wake up was with a blowjob, and that would take a good chunk of time before work. (Tetsu could thank him for it later.)

 

**Assassin's Creed AU**

“Remember the plan,” Tetsu murmurs somewhere in the vicinity of Daiki’s ear, as the three of them slouch along the streets of Florence at two of the clock. He flits along at Daiki’s right, swathed in the mouse-grey garb of the assassin, with the hood of his cloak pulled down to shade his eyes, even in the dark of night.

“Don’t wanna remember the plan,” Daiki mutters. Kagami trots along at his left, wearing an unforgivably loud shirt which clashes horribly with his hair, in contrast with Tetsu’s more understated apparel. His pace is businesslike, his posture quite proper and upright—not at all like the drunk troublemaker he’s to become a few streets hence.

“Just create a distraction like we discussed,” says Tetsu, ignoring him, “and I’ll slip in and get the job done.” He reaches up; pats Daiki on the shoulder, light but bracing. “We’ll be back in time for supper.

Daiki, unfortunately, doesn’t want to be braced. “Why do  _we_  have to be the distraction?” he complains, more loudly this time. It’s a good thing the streets are mainly empty, this time of night; there’s no one out but a few beggars and drunks, the ranks of which they’re going to be joining shortly. No one lucid enough to give them much more than a sodden glance, anyway.

For his part, Tetsu just draws his hand back, slanting a wry look at his companion.

“D’you really think they’d believe that Kagami got drunk and decided to pick a fight with  _me_?”

“You  _do_  beat me when we’re sparring, seven times out of ten,” Kagami interjects.

Tetsu clears his throat. “Be that as it may,” he says, coolly, “I won the coin toss.” He gives a petulant little toss of his head, which—in Daiki’s opinion, at least—only rubs it in more. “Don’t keep me waiting, you two.”

And just like that, he’s gone. Daiki suppresses a sigh. It’s not fair when someone can move like that, so swift and silent you never see him coming or leaving. Well, he supposes everyone’s got to be good at something… and it just so happened that Tetsu got landed with pretty much all of the skills you’d need to be ace at slipping in people’s windows at night and putting them to sleep—forever.

He sighs as they round the corner, approaching the palazzo which, just for tonight, houses the ambassador and his assembled entourage.

“Let’s give ‘em a show, then,” Kagami says, slinging an arm over his shoulders, and swinging himself into a sort of shambling, half-dead lurch, mainly employed by either the very drunk or the badly concussed.

Daiki’s only answer is to burst raucously into song.

“Hey, you lot,” calls a guard standing by the arched entranceway which leads into the inner courtyard. “You can’t come this way. It’s off limits tonight.”

“On whose orders?” Kagami jeers as they draw close, spitting at the guard’s feet and then following it up with a loud and convincing belch.

The guard puts one hand on the pommel of his sword, mildly threatening but remaining calm as he faces them down.

“Now, I don’t want any trouble—” he begins.

“You stepped on my  _foot_!” Daiki yells, much louder than is strictly necessary.

“I did  _not_ ,” Kagami counters, but it’s too late to do anything more than duck the punch that Daiki throws his way. It nails the guard in the face, knocking him flat on his behind; his eyes cross, and then he topples backwards, out for the count.

“What’s all that noise, then? Here, Alessandro, what’s going on?” calls another voice. The sound of footsteps pounding cobblestone floats towards them on the still air.

“Not much of a drunken brawl, this, with just the two of us,” Daiki says, straightening up and cracking his neck. His knuckles ache a little; the guy’s jaw felt like it was carved out of wood.

Kagami flashes him a grin, half-feral, over one shoulder.

“Then we’ll just have to draw more attention, won’t we?” he laughs.

*

Tetsuya feels his way along the palazzo’s roof, taking care to test each tile, each potential foothold, before he uses it. If he wasn’t on a mission, he’d be sprinting along the apex of the roof without a care in the world, and it wouldn’t matter who spotted him at it. But on a moonlit night like this, he’d run the risk of some sharp-eyed guard raising the alarm, and then he’d need a lot more than a distraction to get out safely.

He maneuvers himself down to the edge and peers over carefully, watching the shadows moving about on the sill of the open window below. Two… no, three individuals… at least two of them male, judging by their voices. And armored, too; he can hear the faint clink of metal with each step. Well, no one said this would be easy.

He watches the shadows dancing and flickering, moving and stilling, waiting until he judges it’s just the right moment—and then swings himself down over the edge of the roof, flinging himself feet-first through the window and into the first guard, who goes down with a yell. A swift kick to the head ensures he won’t be getting up again in a hurry.

“Hold on, you can’t be coming in here—” the second guard says, reaching for his sword. He’s fast, but Tetsuya is faster; the wristblade makes a slick sound as it enters his throat and exits through the other side of his head. The sword falls from the ex-guard’s nerveless hand, and is quickly followed by his inert body.

The last person present, as it turns out, is a maidservant; Tetsuya blinks at her for a moment, and then darts forward, narrowly managing to stifle her scream in one hand, and catching the tray she was about to drop in the other, balancing everything upon it with an ease that would put envy in the hearts of acrobats.

“Don’t worry,” he murmurs, quickly, “I won’t harm you, I just need to know—”

She faints. Tetsuya sighs, and then lets her down gently, shaking the blood from his wrist with barely a thought. Well, he’d hoped to ask her for directions, but it seems like he’s on his own for now.

He tips his head to one side, and listens, then, carefully. Somewhere nearby, he hears the gentle splash of water, and someone humming a tuneless song, which sounds faintly hollow and seems to echo, as though percolating up from the bottom of a deep well.

_The bath_. He lets his feet carry him onwards, slipping soundlessly from room to room. If he can hear the man, he can’t be far at all.

*

A shrill whistle sounds in the street, followed by the sound of footsteps—and then a dozen more guards round the corner, eyes wild and weapons drawn.

Kagami looks at him over the dazed skulls of two guards who he has recently introduced to each other by the old gentleman’s method of taking one head in each hand and then bashing them together.

“Time to make a run for it?” he calls over Daiki, who’s busy slapping another guard around with the back of his hand.

Daiki looks up and over, and then blinks, dropping the guard without ceremony.

“Looks like it,” he answers, cheerfully, and then takes to his heels.

*

Naked, in a pool of lightly-perfumed water the old ambassador sits, letting fingertips drag lazy ripples on the surface of his bath. Outside the open window, the moon hangs in the sky, bright and bone-white, like the enormous eye of some distant being observing the actions of all the foolish little mortals below.

A shadow flits across the doorway. He lifts his eyes, but there’s no one to be seen.

“Dario?” he says, his voice trembling just a little. “Is that you?”

There’s no answer. Somewhere in the room, he hears the sound of water dripping.

He shakes his head, squinting. He could have sworn he saw… but no, there’s nothing there. Naught but a trick of the light. At any rate, no one is allowed into his quarters except his manservant, so if anyone’s there at all, it must be him. “Dario?” he tries again.

“No,” Tetsuya murmurs, against his ear. “I’m sorry.”

It’s too late for him to make a sound.

*

They find him like that, in the bath, his throat cut, the tepid bath-water stained through with pink tendrils of diluted blood. (It causes quite the uproar, but then again, that’s what it was supposed to do.)

Miles away, in the guild canteen, Tetsuya swings himself over to the low wooden table to tuck into a hearty supper of stew, bread, and ale—Aomine to his right, Kagami to his left. He slips himself down between them, easy as anything, and leans casually into Aomine’s side.

“I swear I had at least fifty down by the time we made off,” Aomine’s saying loudly, tearing the flesh off a cold capon’s leg with great relish.

“I already knew you couldn’t read, but it looks like you can’t count for shit either, since I’d say you only had two dozen at most,” Kagami counters, flinging out an arm as though to dispel any doubt, and almost knocking over his cup with his elbow in the process.

“Pipe down, you two,” Tetsuya says, a mix of affection and exasperation in his voice. He breaks his bread, dips it in his stew, and then starts to eat. Putting his talents to work always helps him build an appetite.

*

Hand over hand Daiki climbs, higher and higher, scaling the basilica’s walls with ease like a squirrel in its element. A hand-hold here, a grimy lintel there… he sets his feet on an empty windowsill, catching his breath for a moment, before moving resolutely onwards and upwards.

At last, he finds himself at the very top; he knows because he reaches up to grab another handhold, but only finds himself flailing at air. He sets his hands flat on the parapet and hauls himself bodily over it before turning around and reaching back over the edge of the roof.

“‘ere,” he grunts.

A pale hand slips into his palm; he folds thumb and fingers around it, holding tight, and then pulls, dragging Tetsu up and over with him.

Tetsu’s breathing a little heavier than him, but not by much, and considering his reach is significantly shorter than Daiki’s, that’s pretty impressive.

“Long climb,” he says, and brushes off a spot on the rooftop where he can rest himself.

“Sure is,” Daiki agrees, flopping down next to him.

For a while they sit there in silence, side by side, atop the dome at the top of the church. Golden light spills over the rooftops which stretch from horizon to horizon before their eyes; a sea of burnt-sienna tiles rising and falling in peaks and troughs, like waves frozen at a particular instant in time. Smoke-stacks belch the exhaust from cooking-fires into the sky, and far below, people moving and bustling and going about their lives, but so distant that they’re barely more than specks; no more significant than a horde of ants streaming through tiny gutters in the dirt. Alone together, at the top of the world… he sucks in an enormous breath, and then lets it out again in a long, lazy sigh. Even the air up here seems to be thinner, although Daiki figures that’s just his imagination.

He quirks an eye towards Tetsu, then, faintly curious. Tetsu’d probably thump him round the ears for even thinking it, but there’s no word that suits him better; he’s… well, he’s  _pretty_ , in the light of the setting sun, strands of his hair floating gently before blue eyes and fingers steepled in front of his face like he’s deep in thought. But he supposes he shouldn’t be surprised; in his eyes, there’s always been something special about Tetsu.

“Got a question for you,” Daiki says, after a moment, waxing casual.

Tetsu blinks and looks over, then. “What is it?” (Daiki thinks he sees a smile playing round the corners of Tetsu’s mouth, and looks away quickly—probably nothing but a trick of the light, in any case.)

“I was wonderin’… why you wear that, ‘stead of what we’re s’posed to,” he says, slowly, turning his eyes back out upon the vast spread of the city beneath them.

“This?” Tetsu fingers the sleeve of his grey robe, absently. It’s a tad threadbare, but also spotless; he’s nothing if not fastidious with his appearance. “It just… never seemed wise to me, wearing all white. A successful assassin dressed in white will soon be a lovely shade of pink instead.” He pauses. “… An unsuccessful one, too, come to think of it. Besides,” he goes on, “it works for me, doesn’t it?”

Daiki cocks his head to one side, thoughtful. That was true; Tetsu had top marks for stealth. Everyone said he was cheating half the time. Daiki, for his part, wasn’t sure what he thought about that, except that it wasn’t  _really_  cheating if you were just being yourself… right? “D’you suppose you could teach me to do that?” he asks.

Tetsu turns then, looking him up and down with a critical eye. “…I doubt it,” he concludes, after a beat. “You’re too big by half.”

“That’s what the girls all say,” Daiki replies, completely serious.

He spends the next minute and a half coughing his lungs up, after Tetsu jabs him in the ribs with a well-placed elbow.

“Christ,” Daiki wheezes, “go easy on a man, won’t you?”

“Mercy is for other people,” Tetsu muses, stretching his hands out over his head languidly, and then letting himself fall onto his back, on the dusty rooftop. Overhead, the sky is dimming but still lit, deep blues and purples staining the hollows and corners of the sky as the sun begins to dip below the distant hills.

It’s but the work of a moment—once he’s got air back in his lungs, at least—for Daiki to slide himself over the other, one hand flat on the tile to each side of Tetsu’s head. He leans down, bringing their mouths close together where their breath can mingle.

“What if I beg?” he says, in the huskiest murmur he can manage.

Tetsu studies him, carefully, that smile—for surely it  _is_  a smile—playing round his lips again.

“Anything for a price,” he decides, and reaches up to drape arms over Daiki’s shoulders, drawing him down.

 

**Couch cuddles - > lazy makeouts**

Tetsu always likes to watch those mystery shows on TV—those procedurals or wordy crime dramas about some guy who got knocked off for a buck, and now it’s some other poor sap’s job to figure out whodunnit. They make Daiki’s head hurt something fierce, but it’s Tetsu’s night to have the remote, and no amount of whining or wheedling or grumbling is going to get him to give it up.

So when Daiki decides to flop down on the sofa for the night and vegetate, he has to first clamber over the back of it, and then insinuate himself between Tetsu and the couch, neatly. Once there, he folds his arm around Tetsu’s waist to drag him close and then nuzzles at the back of his neck.

“Mmph,” Tetsu grunts, tangling their legs together without a thought. From the TV comes the sound of glass breaking, and then a blood-curdling scream. (Daiki doesn’t bother to look just yet, but he’s thinking—although this is just a guess—that it’s probably a crime of some sort.)

“Hi to you, too,” Daiki mumbles, and molds his lips over the place where Tetsu’s neck and shoulder meet, bared when the collar of his shirt slips down a little. Tetsu wriggles a little against him, ticklish and discontent, which makes Daiki grin. “You been keepin’ well?”

“Mhm,” Tetsu says, lightly. “Right up until some fat slob came and took up all the space on the couch, that is.” He stretches bonelessly against Daiki, and yawns; the feel of his body against Daiki’s as it arches makes something warm stir in his belly.

“Hey,” Daiki objects, taking the opportunity to slip his hand deftly under Tetsu’s shirt and slide it up over his chest, splaying fingers across it. “I’m not fat.”

“So you  _are_  a slob?” Tetsu inquires, rolling his eyes up to give Daiki a demure look from beneath his lashes. That’s another opportunity Daiki won’t hesitate to seize; he dips his head down, brushing their mouths together, once, twice, three times, and maybe slipping Tetsu a little tongue at the end of it.

“Not so much that you can’t stand me,” he decides, close enough to graze the tip of his nose against Tetsu’s in a clumsy eskimo kiss.

“Don’t push your luck,” Tetsu murmurs, but his eyes glitter with silent laughter. His arms fit just nice over Daiki’s shoulders as he rolls onto his back, tugging Daiki over him. And if it’s weird to make out while a coroner’s rattling off some fictional cause of death in the background— well, no one said they were normal.

 

**Morning after**

Getting up the morning after is a Herculean feat which Kuroko can never quite seem to get the hang of. For one thing, his back aches like the dickens, and his rear is more than a little sore. They do switch it up for variety’s sake, of course, but sometimes, there’s nothing Kuroko wants more than to be bent over and… well… you know the drill. (Pun intended.) And then naturally he regrets it in the morning, because spending an hour or two bent double, with your knees to your ears, isn’t good for your posture. But living means making sacrifices, and this seems to be his lot.

The other thing is that Aomine is, of course, heavier than him, and so the mattress slopes a little towards his side of the bed, forming a warm little hollow that keeps Kuroko cuddled up alongside him. It’s almost imperceptible, but from Kuroko’s point of view it may as well be a ninety degree angle, an impassable barrier hemming him in and holding him in place. He flails his arms about weakly, making a few truncated attempts to escape Aomine’s inexorable gravitational pull, and then succumbs to the allure of a warm blanket and a warmer lover—even if that lover happens to be drooling unattractively on his pillow.

A few minutes pass in peace. Kuroko drowses in a happy sleepy haze of should-I-get-up-now, maybe-in-a-bit, and stretches out alongside Aomine like a contented cat.

…And then his stomach makes a noise of pure gurgling displeasure, like a clogged drain, which jolts him uncomfortably back into consciousness. He lifts one hand up, holding it perpendicular to study it sleepily—and then brings it down across Aomine’s face with a resounding splat.

All this gets out of Aomine is a grunt. “Mmnh?” he snorts, and doesn’t move a muscle otherwise.

“Food,” Kuroko grunts back. (He’d be embarrassed if anyone else was around to see, but there’s only Aomine, and Aomine is the last person who’s allowed to comment on him being reduced to monosyllabic responses after a night of vigorous exercise.)

Now, most mornings he gets up earlier than Aomine does (though that’s not hard, since when he’s not under any other time constraints, Aomine only gets out of bed to satisfy one of his three vital needs: eating, pissing, and playing basketball). But they have a deal going, and the deal is this: whoever tops the hell out of the other one is also the person who has to obtain sustenance in the morning.

Which means that it’s Kuroko’s turn to lie in bed, all comfortable and lazy and warm, while Aomine has to pull on pants and venture out into the cold cruel world to locate something nourishing so neither of them pass out in the middle of their next orgasm.

“And don’t forget the hash browns,” Kuroko calls, face half-buried in his pillow, lying amorously on his stomach.

“Yeah, yeah,” Aomine mutters, finally locating his pants where they were discarded on the floor the previous night. He pulls them on, then heads for the door; Kuroko watches from under lazy lashes, and doesn’t even protest when Aomine gives him a good slap on the rump, as though for luck.

“Stay warm for me,” says Aomine, grinning.

“The sooner you come back, the sooner you can warm me up,” Kuroko tells him—and yeah, that gets him out the door nice quick.

Left to his own devices, Kuroko rolls onto his back, huffing a sigh of complete and utter satisfaction with life. He can think of worse ways to spend a Sunday morning.

 

**First time**

Daiki’s voice is husky against his ear; his stubble rasps Tetsuya’s jaw.

“…‘sit hurt, Tetsu?” he murmurs.

Tetsuya shakes his head ‘no’, closed-mouthed, eyes fixed on the round sprinkler-head embedded in the ceiling. It’s a lie, of course; there’s no way it  _wouldn’t_  hurt, the burn and stretch of it, the weight of Daiki between his thighs pressing inwards, relentless even as he tries to be gentle. He sucks in a breath, and then lets it out in a quiet hiss, hands flexing and tensing on the sheets as Daiki hikes his hips up a little higher and drives himself home.

For a long moment they’re both still and quiet, hardly daring to move or breathe, as though breaking the silence would also break the spell that’s fallen over them. Being joined like this… it’s different from anything he’s ever experienced before, different even from what he imagined it would be like. He can feel Daiki’s heartbeat, pounding against his chest and pulsing through the flesh now nestled up against his inner walls; can feel Daiki twitching against him as though straining to keep still—it’s so astonishingly intimate that it takes his breath away.

It’s Daiki who speaks first, of course; Tetsuya’s still too busy marveling at the feeling of it to say a word.

“…jeez, Tetsu,” he says. There’s something like awe in his voice, as he cups Tetsuya’s face in one palm, his calluses rough against Tetsuya’s cheek.

“What is it?” Tetsuya asks, faintly. (He’s surprised he can even find locate his voice, let alone form a whole sentence—it’s incredible what the brain can do in a pinch.)

“You feel… really good.” There’s a hoarse chuckle riding on the tail end of that which makes Tetsuya screw up his face, wryly. Trust Daiki to find the most romantic thing to say, at a time like this.

Then Daiki shifts; the motion sends a little jolt of sensation flaring along Tetsuya’s nerves, ripping a gasp from his throat. Daiki starts back, then goes still, concern creasing his brow.

“Shit—sorry, Tetsu, I didn’t mean to—“

Tetsuya quiets him with a kiss, arching up lazily to seal their mouths together; the flick of his tongue into Daiki’s mouth is light, almost coquettish.

“You can move,” he murmurs, against Daiki’s lips. “You won’t hurt me.”

Daiki stares down at him; it’s dark, but Tetsuya can see the way his throat moves as he swallows, hard. Then he presses his hands into the sheets, gripping them; leans down and nudges Tetsuya’s face up for a kiss, and  _moves_ … and Tetsuya’s whole world moves with him.

 

**A coincidental meeting**

In general, this is a statement that applies to everyone: there are some things—some sights or sounds or smells or feelings—that can trigger a certain select memory so intensely as to send you back in time. It’s almost a kind of witchcraft, the way it works; one moment you’d be doing whatever it is you were doing, standing around, living your life, going about your daily business—the next, wrestling with long-forgotten memories and all these feelings that you’d thought you’d left behind, but it turns out they were just waiting for an opportune moment to surface and tear down all the walls you’d built to hide behind and pretend you were all right.

Something like this happens to Daiki on the last day of the school trip for Touou’s first years. He’s just walking along minding his own business, only half-listening to Satsuki babbling on about buying Tetsu-kun a souvenir for the next time she sees him, and then—he hears it. A familiar voice on the air; a voice that he mostly hears just in his dreams these days, even though he’s got Tetsu’s number and he could call any time he wanted to hear it for real. (It’s just awkward, somehow, even if Tetsu doesn’t feel that way and it’s all in his head.) Somehow, somewhere, he hears Tetsu’s voice, and then he’s fourteen again, he’s in Nara with Satsuki and Tetsu and there’s a deer eating out of his hand in the park, then they’re climbing up the steps of some old shrine, Tetsu’s running ahead, he’s laughing—he breathes in deep, the air filling his lungs is refreshing, cleaner than the air in the city, and he can’t remember where he is anymore.

“Dai-chan?” Satsuki says, looking back at him curiously, because he’s stopped walking. Then she turns a bit more, looking past Daiki, and squeals. “Tetsu-kun!”

He turns. It is, in fact, Tetsu, in the flesh; so it wasn’t just a hallucination of his voice. He’s got that big lunk with him, Kagami, strolling along, and they’re both in their school uniforms—on their own school trip, he figures, after a moment or two.  _What a shitty fuckin’ coincidence._

“Momoi-san,” Tetsu says, nodding and smiling; Kagami gives a casual wave.

He realizes Satsuki’s looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to behave like a normal person and greet them. So instead he huffs and shoves his hands into his pockets, looking away. There’s an awkward silence, then—broken, fortunately, by Kagami, who’s oblivious to the tension.

“Whatsamatter, Ahomine,” he jokes, loudly, “Already worried about losing to me next time?”

“Like hell I am,” Daiki immediately snaps. “I’ll take you on right now, kid.”

“ _No_ , Dai-chan,” says Satsuki, firmly, inserting herself between them before they can start champing at the bit and scraping up the floor in their respective displays of manliness. “There’s no ball here, and no court, either.There will be  _no_  playing today!” She glares at him. “We’re buying souvenirs,  _remember_?”

Out of the corner of his eye he notices Tetsu stifling a laugh into his hand. It’s subtle, the way Tetsu always laughs, but it’s like a weight lifted off his shoulders. (It’s like he can  _breathe_  again, just seeing that.)

“Yeah, well,” he mutters, deflating. “I never said I wanted to do it. You  _made_  me come.”

It’s Tetsu who offers the olive branch—always Tetsu, Tetsu who doesn’t even know how to feel awkward around someone who was a jerk to him for so long. (Tetsu who didn’t know that you weren’t supposed to extend a hand to the loser and help them up, either, let alone give them a damn  _fistbump_.)

“Shall we go together, then?” he asks, and he smiles at Satsuki before turning his eyes onto Daiki, slow and deliberate. Daiki looks away, then looks back, and finds Tetsu still gazing at him evenly.

So he gives in. (What else can he do?)

“Yeah, fine,” he grumbles, falling into step next to Tetsu while Momoi gleefully slides her arm through Kagami’s, making him sputter. “Let’s shop. Or whatever. At least you guys can entertain me while Satsuki’s buying things.”

And he’s still grumpy, so he pretends not to notice when Tetsu touches his hand and smiles… but maybe, just for a moment, he smiles back.

 

**Aomine caught a cold**

Thing is, when he’d texted Tetsu in a miserable fever-haze, begging Tetsu to come over because he’d caught a cold which was most  _definitely_  going to kill him and he just wanted to see Tetsu one last time before he went to that big basketball court in the sky—he hadn’t expected Tetsu to actually… y’know…  _show up_.

"DAIKI! Your friend’s here!"

That was Daiki’s mom at around four in the afternoon, which was right about when they’d be getting off school normally. He knew it wasn’t Momoi because his mom would’ve said ‘Momoi-chan’, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be anyone else. (He briefly entertained the notion of Imayoshi-senpai dropping by with a get-well present and a smile, but—no, he felt nauseous enough without  _that_  image in his head.)

So he spent the next half a minute with his pillow clamped over his head, pretending to be dead while listening anxiously to Tetsu tromping up the stairs.

A moment later the door creaked open, followed by polite footsteps which terminated somewhere in the vicinity of his bedside.

"Pardon the intrusion," Tetsu announced, in a quiet voice.

There was a pause after this (presumably Tetsu was studying the massive mound of blankets on the bed and trying to determine if Aomine-kun was contained within them).

"… Pretending to be dead, are we?" he ventured, after a while.

"I  _am_  dead,” said Daiki, muffled through several layers of fabric and down stuffing. “You were too late.”

Another pause for thought, and then—“Does that mean I can have your Jordans?”

"Like hell you can," Daiki said hurriedly, yanking his head out of the pillow. "They’re too big for you."

Tetsu gave him an indulgent smile, and then seated himself on the very edge of the bed.

"You look… well," he said, slowly, although there was definite hesitation there. On  _some_  level, Daiki was aware that he was just being a big baby, but that was only because he felt like utter, utter  _crap_. He was usually very valiant and phlegmatic in the face of suffering, and in fact said as much to Tetsu, who was essentially a captive audience for the next few minutes.

"Oh yes," Tetsu answered (Daiki ignored the way his eyes twinkled at that). " _Very_  valiant. Not to mention dashing.”

“‘Sright,” said Daiki, and sniffled loudly. Tetsu handed him a tissue and he emptied his sinuses into it.

For a moment more, possibly transfixed in horror, Tetsu observed this process. Then he tore his eyes away, pulling his rucksack up into his lap. He reached inside, and drew out a plastic bag from the local grocery store.

"I brought you some fruit," he said.

"Burger?" said Daiki, voice brimming with hope. Tetsu favored him with a stern look.

"No.  _Fruit_ ,” he said, in a no-nonsense tone. “ _Vitamins_. Things that are good for you.”

"Teriyaki beef is full of vitamins," Daiki said, although his point may have been somewhat undermined by the dribble of snot exiting his left nostril at that very moment.

Tetsu handed him another tissue, and then placed the plastic bag on the nightstand while Daiki was blowing his nose again. “Please eat them tonight,” he ordered (it was interesting how he could unironically say ‘please’ at the beginning of something that was most definitely not a request). “I’ll be taking my leave now.”

At this point Daiki was already sitting up, but that didn’t stop him from trying to sit up harder from surprise and nearly falling out of bed. “Hold on a sec,” he said, trying to gather up the discarded wads of tissue paper which had been dislodged at his movement like a repulsive shower of dandruff, “you’re leaving already? Where are you going?”

"Home," said Tetsu, raising his eyebrows sardonically.

“ _What?_ That’s ridiculous,” Daiki scoffed. “Sit back down. You only just got here.”

Tetsu’s eyebrows were just about high enough to reach his hairline now. “I want no funny business,” he warned. “I have a quiz tomorrow and I do not wish to catch your disease.”

"Haven’t you, though?" Daiki leered. Then he had to scramble to seize Tetsu’s wrist before he left the room—and gave it a nice hard tug once he’d managed to grab it, for good measure.

The end result of this (Tetsu splayed helplessly across his sickbed) was rather pleasing to him, but apparently less so to Tetsu, who punched him in the chest.

"—jesus, Tetsu," Daiki wheezed, once he’d recovered his breath, massaging at his chest while Tetsu sat up and gave him a shitty look. "You tryin’ to kill me?"

"You do this to yourself," Tetsu told him flatly.

Daiki stuck out his lower lip like the annoying kid he was. “What if this was the last time you saw me, huh? What if the next time you come by, I’m dead from pneumonia or something?”

It was barely noticeable—just  _barely_ —but Tetsu’s scowl wavered a little. (That was a victory in itself.)

"Well, please make sure you eat that fruit before you die," he said. "That came out of my allowance, you know."

"Yeah, yeah," Daiki muttered. He brushed some tissues aside, and then held out his arms. "At least a hug, then, before you go." He crinkled up his face desperately. "Just one?"

Tetsu hesitated.

"I swear I’m not contagious," Daiki said hastily.

"I suppose if stupidity were contagious, Momoi-san would be quite a different person," Tetsu mused.

“‘ssat supposed to mean?”

"I rest my case."

But he gave Daiki a hug anyway, so that was all right. (And maybe even brushed dry lips over his cheek—a brief touch, but leaving a weird tingling sensation in their wake.)

"Get well soon, Aomine-kun," he murmured, against Daiki’s ear. "Call me when you are feeling better."

The moment he was gone, Daiki burrowed himself back under the blankets with a sigh. He wondered if there was a certain amount of time that you were supposed to allow to pass before you started jerking off while thinking about someone who had just been in your room. Maybe it was polite or something. But if he waited too long, the memory of Tetsu’s lips on his cheek was going to fade.

That was the kind of sacrifice he made for Tetsu, he reflected, staring listlessly at the box of Kleenex on his nightstand. One day, he was sure that Tetsu would come to appreciate it.

 

**Up to no good in the middle of winter**

Aomine wasn’t the sentimental type. No, if you asked him he’d probably tell you he was a manly man—the  _manliest_  of men, throbbing with testosterone!, masculinity!, and other multi-syllabled words that he saved up specially for occasions like these.

So as for what happened at the train station that day, he had no explanation. Zero. Zip. Nothing. Nada. It was as mysterious as the moon; as inexplicable as that one time Satsuki found giant fake joke boobs hidden in his locker. It was a passing flight of fancy that meandered through his mind, completely unwarranted and wholly embarrassing.

It was snowing that day, and frost hung in the air. The air was brisk, and had a damp smell, like dozens of people trudging through packed ice as they exited the station. Aomine had head and hands tucked into his jacket to avoid the bitter cold, and was currently trying very hard not to look at his traveling companion, who was about five inches from his left elbow (give or take an inch) and was calmly reading Nietzsche.

There was frost on Tetsu’s eyelashes, some part of Aomine noticed. Ninety percent of him tried not to look and the other ten percent stared openly, possibly with a mental wolf whistle. He was… Aomine wouldn’t say “pretty”, no; that word was reserved for girls, jewelry, tastefully decorated kitchens… that sort of thing. Certainly not people like Tetsu, who had fists of steel and eyes to match, eyes that could paralyze you with a disapproving gaze at fifteen feet the moment he so much as sensed that you were up to no good.

He was just… he was nice to look at, Aomine decided. (His head was starting to hurt a little, and if he was honest with himself he didn’t think it was entirely the weather’s fault.)

On the other hand… as much as blue was Tetsu’s color, he wasn’t sure that it looked good on his lips, or fingertips. Aomine was warm in his own jacket, but contrary to what most people, including his own parents, might have said about him, he wasn’t physically incapable of empathy. And Tetsu’s book wasn’t going to keep him any warmer than that woefully inadequate coat of his unless he used it as kindling and set it on fire.

So… call it a whim, a flight of fancy, whatever you like—but it was about then, while he was busy ogling Tetsu’s mouth, that some demon possessed him and made him hold out his arms, jacket half-open, and say, “Hey, Tetsu, do you want to—?”

"Do I want to what," Tetsu answered automatically. Then he looked. Then he raised an eyebrow.

That made Aomine feel a bit silly, so his mouth promptly disengaged from his brain. “Um… uh. You know.”

"Um… uh, I know?" Tetsu echoed.

Around this point Aomine perceived that Tetsu was smiling, ever so slightly. It was hard to tell sometimes, when he was amused and teasing, but Aomine had had enough years to be able to figure that out, at least.

So he snorted, “Oh, screw you,” and wrapped Tetsu up in his arms before Tetsu could make fun of him some more.

It was warmer like that; comfortable, like it always was. Aomine marveled at the way that Tetsu fit into his arms, just right, as though he’d been made for it. And having Tetsu that close had other benefits, as well; he could now see every gleam of the frost clinging to Tetsu’s eyelashes, as the light caught it, and felt a weird, vague stirring in his stomach that was kinda, sorta like the urge to kiss him.

Tetsu was gazing back, evenly, with that same handsome, slightly amused expression. He was so close… The moment was right. And just as Aomine was about to go for it, Tetsu said, in a mild voice, “Aomine-kun should buy a ticket if you’re going to stare so much.”

"I hate you," Aomine grumbled, tucking his head over Tetsu’s. Yeah, okay, he’d almost gotten carried away. They weren’t exactly in the privacy of his or Tetsu’s room, where they could get up to a lot more than kissing. Still, though. Still.

"No, you don’t," Tetsu said, smiling properly now, and leaning back into him, fitting himself against Aomine’s body as though by instinct.

"Yeah, you’re right. I love you," Aomine agreed.

There was no tell-tale intake of breath and certainly no squeal of fawning delight, but with the two of them that close, he felt the little shiver that ran through Tetsu at his words, and the way Tetsu melted a little more into his arms. He grinned to himself, and tightened the hug. Even if he was the bigger idiot, it was good to know he wasn’t the only one stupidly in love.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos appreciated! ^_^


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